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

It's not if you're really curious look further back in the thread. Not going to go through that again, too many angry SMN upset at the prospect of omg their gear is outdated. The tests were done by myself, proof was given, don't know what to tell you if that's not good enough for you.


If you follow the quote link you're actually on that same page asking the same questions about ward duration and skill caps :(

600 was mentioned for alexander before but I never saw solid proof that capped at 600 either and if you're a SMN you should know Alexander is its own thing and not associated with ward duration. You could at least acknowledge an answer if it's been given to you twice now.

Verda I apologize... I read FaeQueen's post but I completely missed your previous post, sorry :( I wasn't trying to ignore you, I just didn't see your reply, I was in a rush.

Yes I use 3x Beckoner+1 as well, and since 600 isn't the cap I guess I'm gonna keep going like this.


SE did indeed say that 600 skill was the threshold at which Perfect Defense would last the same amount of time as the old pre-nerf PD, but they never said 600 was the cap, and while I haven't tested I'm pretty confident it's not.

Would it be worth re-purposing my old Helios gloves into hands with the following augments?

Pet: Accuracy +30, Haste 6% and Double attack 8%

What other uses are there for Helios these days? Only thing that comes to mind is Blood pact delay reduction augments for /SMN Mewing Lullaby spam.

For the hands slot, yes Pet:Acc/Haste/DA is about the only use remaining. It's too bad it can't get Pet:DT like Telchine.

On some other slots they have more uses. For example they're the best Pet:MAcc piece in most slots, with 30 Pet:MAcc and 8 skill. I used to have blood boon as my third augment on debuff pieces, but I changed that a while back to BP timer on 3 of them so that it would double as my BP timer piece for /SMN.

Another good use is for physical BPs. The head & feet both beat NQ Apogee. Well, the feet are a toss-up but I think 4 crit rate is better than 1 BP damage, especially with how most optimal builds these days are lacking in pet:crit. Some of the other pieces can be nice when you need accuracy, although Merlinic (with really good augments) and Apogee+1 generally still end up beating it I think.

I'll have to check my sets when I get home, I'm going off memory so I hope I'm not posting any outdated info.

Yeah I think my feet have 6 BP dmg, crit 4% and attack +30 so good to know those still have a use. I've noticed some JP SMN with full pet Magic evasion +30 pieces. Any clue what that is about?

That's new to me, I haven't seen it before. I could see that being useful for tanking certain magic-heavy NMs but honestly magic damage has never been an avatar's weak point to begin with unless it's of multiple elements. It seems rare that this would be preferable over a Pet:DT set.

The best case I can think of where it might be useful is if it can block DoTs in a fight like Selkit, because strong DoTs are an avatar's worst enemy.

Maybe to do mewing spam on Yakshi. Typical pet burn setup for that is BST BST BST COR SMN GEO. On pop SMN uses Alexander, while GEO bolsters and BST all 1 hour. Then you conduit mewing lullaby on Yakshi to prevent TP moves. The only time this will fail, is if pets get breakga'd. Breakga and amnesia really suck on pets, paralyze not so much as it only affects autoattacks and silence won't stop ready/pacts either. So my guess would be for tanking with garuda or leviathan, and avoiding those two status effects. It could also help on teles as clarion call hurts bad if you don't have EA/Scherzo or tons of magic evasion. While players will get attune, pets only benefit from Vex and it could put you over the needed evasion to let garuda stay out doing predator claws on teles.

So i've been discussing this situation around with a few people and haven't hit a solid testing technique.

The values for leviathan favor needs to be tested, considering shiva's potency compared to geo there is potential but i'm at a loss for a viable target mob to accurately test with. It needs to be a mob that doesn't vary in level, has no crazy magic resistances and can't buff its stats. My first inclination is a eacha zi'tah tier 1.

I'm also going to post on the OF and see if i can goad them to post it like they did geo values. Having that table complete would be interesting and useful

Is there a page here that has updated gearsets for the current equipment?

The front page seems a bit outdated.

You have to review recent pages, or use someones lua as it currently stands. I have mine pretty sorted, if you wanted to see my lua sets. A guide for SMN is on my list of things to do my problems is my list of things to do is long but I've worked on it when I have time. I'll edit this post in with a link to my recent sets lua file when I get to my gaming computer. But if you want to see a bit outdated one there's my lua thread in the same forum category as this one (summoner job forum), and you can see the SMN-sets.lua file and it's pretty organized. All text isn't very easy on the eyes though.

@Frod: I've wondered that too for quite some time, the only testing technique I know of would mean casting like 2000 casts of something, recording resist rates, and then doing it again for something with higher magic resist rate and so on until you could nail down the rate so that's why no one ever really tests magic accuracy or resist rates from food/traits etc either (even though those are probably easier to test than magic acc..) so I hope you can get an answer on the OF.

Wouldn't Glyphic Bracers +1 be just as good and already made for that?

Cool, I think I can figure some of it out myself. I may just ask some questions here and there. Going to start building a wishlist to moderately gear my SMN.

They serve the same purpose, but have much lower stats. 2 less accuracy, 3 less haste, no double attack at all.

Regimen Mittens would be a comparable haste choice, but still lose stats.

I'm more than willing to do the spell spam, i just need to pin down a definitive target first, then get the defined base value (of either my smn /sch with locked on favor gear or a naked blm) then run the boosted value. Spending a few days nuke spamming is the least of my worries.

Ah, but if helios is being re-purposed for bp delay timer down the double attack will go away as it shares the same augment slot.

Seems like an expensive way to re-purpose and the bp delay will not match the -6 from glyphic as IIRC helios bp delay caps at -5 with max augment. Which means you need to get a -1 from somewhere else.

I use 2 pieces of armor including glyphic bracers+1 for -12 bp timer I and make up the remaining -3 with 2 earrings to hit -15 on the base; and that's only for swap in bp-min. so the haste/acc on the helios shouldn't even matter.

I idle on telchine with -dt and regen ; the same helios piece could conceivably be an alternate idle for for pt tp gain without the need to repurpose; subbing in glyphic for timer down when needed.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something critical here.

The conversation was about BP delay reduction on Helios for the other jobs on it that might end up /SMN to Mewing Lullaby.

Try doing Brenner. Spam say fire I a lot on a RUN or WHM. Then you can calculate your approximate magic evasion and magic accuracy. You'll want magic acc in a range it isn't capped or floored, then your resist rates will tell you where you are. After that you can start trying to introduce magic evasion gear to your target, or add/remove magic acc gear to yourself and try to hit the same hit rate with leviathans favor maxed. It's the best way I can personally think to do it, but not gonna say it is best.

Couldn't find much info on this -- what stones are best for augmenting Grioavolr? I think I was using Fern the other day, BP Dmg+ was rare, but was showing up every so often. Not sure if there's a better option.

Fern is probably the best bet, though Pellucid isn't a terrible choice either.

Fern is the only stone I've ever seen more than 8 BP Damage on. That said, I've heard people claim you can still get the max of +10 with a Pellucid, but personally I've never seen it. Pellucid will have better Pet:MAcc/MAB rolls, but less likely to have a good BP damage roll.

I currently have bp dmg 9, pet: macc 9, matt 30 on my Grio. I am quite sure I got that from a pellucid, but it has been so long, and ive tossed so many stones at it, that it could very well have been fern. I feel pretty strongly that it was pellucid, however.

http://imgur.com/a/gCLgR

From using Fern Stones.

This seemed like a good place to stop for now.

Nice, that's a very good roll. Congrats!

The best path for Apoogee Pumps +1?


options are too good, hard to pick one


A: MP+80 Pet: "Magic Atk. Bonus"+35 "Blood Pact" damage +8
B: AugmentB: MP+80 Pet: Attack+35 "Blood Pact" damage +8
C: AugmentC: MP+80 Pet: Attack+25 Pet: "Magic Atk. Bonus"+25 "Blood Pact" damage +8
D: AugmentD: MP+80 Summoning Magic Skill+20 "Blood Pact" damage +8

Best choice: have 3 of them, one Path A, one path B, one path D.

Acceptable Compromise: Have one HQ with path C and one NQ with path D

Stupid Compromise: Have only 1 HQ with path D and use it pretty much for everything



Third option is pretty stupid honestly, but it can be better than your current options damage-wise, depending on what you had until now. Still feels like a waste, if you had the gil to buy HQ Cursed Pumps it shouldn't be a problem to buy another pair of NQ and go for the second option.

I would concur with Sechs. It's the most MAB you can get in a feet slot, Psycloth are really good for physical attack on path C (20 acc 45 atk 3%DA) and then use a NQ pair for the perp/SumMag.

Do you blood pact with the ambuscade cape on or is there another cape that is better for BP damage?

Same question applies to the Carbie/Cait Mitts, do you want to BP w/ this mitts on for the level or use Merlinic dastanas for BP damage?

Two ambuscade capes (four if you're really really picky). Two Merlinic hands.

4TH option is to have an HQ for magic build A (or Path C if your summoner swings that way) and have an NQ apogee for the skill, or if you want to waste the gil, HQ apogee for the extra 5 skill. The +15 / 20 skill from the pumps are kind of awesome in that it extends buffs a lot further once I respecced NQ to be a skill piece.

In my case, I got the NQ first then worked on the gil for an HQ. I suspect most SMNs will be on this boat if they ever get to an HQ piece as most of us are not swimming in gil between the various gilsinks available to us in the end game.

TBH if you already have HQ apogee and it's on Path A, having a Path C piece is really kind of a waste.


The Acc. is really nice if you need it, but the brute force bonus of a apogee +1 BP bonus stacks with everything else, plus the set bonus on the BP damage multiplier probably allows you to just use +1 for both physical and magical. Can always set it to Path C if you really need the attack.

Which cape is more important to get first?

And just to clarify, I meant the Lvl +1 Mitts for Carbie and Cait sith. There level +1 is less game changing damage wise than a well augmented Merlinic dastanas?

Thanks for the answer.