Note To All Smn Burners.

You do realize their skill affects songs..? Yes I realize this may not be a huge deal in a meritpo but it can be noticable and if you were burning a bard in smn for merits why wouldnt you just do smn for merits ?_? Also who merits with 2 bards? Brd + Cor need mah cor roll kthnx.

^
50k per hour merit party @ 75 SMN for minimal concentration and at max 10 minutes of honest work..? {Yes, please.}

this cat makes a good point, can't argue with that watermelon.

My only real issue with Smn burns is when people are jerks about it. I farm the slimes in the tunnel periodically for synthing and run into a burn party almost every time I am there. Not a huge deal since if there is a smn burn in progress they are fantastic about collecting all the slimes in one place for me and I just pick them out of the ball and kill them. Not really a fan of doing this but I refuse to wait 30+ min for them to finish thier burn so that I can farm. So far I've only had one person complain about this but when I told them they were screwing up my farming they backed off real quick. It's surprising how hospitable people can be when they know you can ruin thier world with a single diaga. I'm still kinda waiting for that one guy to be a total buttcrunch to me one day while farming. I think it will be a good time for a couple weeks.

Yes, I know skill gives better buffs.

Yes, I know that if a BRD comes to an event for a shell, it better be able to do something more than give buffs out.

Can we assume that people know what they are doing? If you do, then I will say no more on the subject, because you live in a fantasy world where there is no coming out of.

I'm giving an example of how one particular job can benfit from burning its job to 75. Most people who burn their jobs have more than 1 job to do events on, and usually don't even come to events with the job they burned.

Those noobs who first start this game, however, don't know any better. There are a couple of people I know who started this game seeing how easy it is to get to 75 (usually within 3-4 days) so they make sure to burn all their jobs to 75 and get a Maat's cap before they are a month old. While that is sad, it is starting to increase in numbers of noob Maat's Caps.

I have seen a BLM with a Maat's Cap on who rarely not get resisted on puddings in a Manaburn in Mount Z. S/he has got some of the best gear also (including Novio, which makes me think if s/he just bought her character and/or buy gil to get the best ***) and wonders why I, who have an equal amount of gear on, is able to outdamage him/her for 3-4 times damage on average.

This is why I'm against SMN burns in general.

I've seen jobs burned that I knew the player already had many of their skills capped, or nearly so, from playing other jobs.

Not taking up for smn burns at all, just saying that there's a good and bad side to them. Giving smns who don't have any other means a chance to merit, that's a good point. Gimping morons (the people who don't know how / are too lazy to skill up afterward and feel the need to jump right into endgame with the burned job), that can be trouble for the rest of us.

I think it's more of a situation of, to each his/her own. Eventually the noobs will learn what skills are. You don't necessarily have to party with them or let them into endgame if their skills are too low.

Case in point, I need to level THF for a sub and am loathe to do so. Thanks to Dancer, my dagger skill is already well above 37 cap, and my evasion and parrying have been for longer than that. There's really no excuse not to burn THF for a few levels.

But I won't, as a matter of pride. I earn my levels through work, I don't cheat 'em.

I still don't why people are butthurt over this.

NAH MAN, ON SHIVA? I STAND THERE AND CAST DIAGA ALL DAY, YOU GOT TO PAY ME A TOLL FEE IF YOU WANT TO ASTRAL BURN. IT'S WHAT MAKES ME LAUGH.

Likely, they're either burned that a group wouldn't let them join, or simply haven't been in one / don't know how to get into one. I've never encountered someone who's 'in' being against it for logical reasons aside from disliking skilling up, which is entirely understandable.

That's still a personal preference. I'd rather spend a few hours skilling something up than in the case of some jobs days (if not more) LFP just to get an invite to a Qufim Island level sync and gimp my skills anyway.

Let's not forget the East Ronfaure S spammage!

I'd understand people being upset if this "exploit" was discovered in the vanilla times of FFXI as progressing through an exploit would be a moral issue and would have a great affect on the outcome of the populace for years to come. However, it's what-- seven to eight years down the road? I see nothing wrong in using in game systematics to get ahead at a faster pace. Won't be hard to weed out the idiots and non-skilled players that were babied the entire way to 75 anyways.

What I find amusing is the fact that people are fine with DD's in a Qufim PT, that hit 2 macros for a couple hours (Seriously, 2 macros makes you DD.. /ta <bt> /wait 1 /attack on, /ws "Whatever" <t>), yet SMN burns (which involve a SMN waiting for 30+ minutes, using their 2hr and getting a fairly specific setup to begin with) are shunned as if they were killing nuns, even though they require more work (in general) than putting 6 DD in a Qufim PT and taking a WHM along..

The amount of flame that this type of party has recieved is truly amazing. I honestly expected the PW log hate issue to have lasted longer than this, but apparently SMN burning, because its more widely used (considering the number of SMN burned people almost assuredly outnumber the people doing PW) has easily taken first place in the list of "FFXI's All Time Flame Core".

My problem I have with this is the topic of morality. Logically speaking, if the morality of using the game mechanic as it is being used in SMN burns was suspect, the people would announce this to Square Enix, who would investigate the issue and determine whether or not its viable use of the mechanic, or against the End User's Agreement and a glitch that has been exploited...

Oddly enough, this is what happened, and Square Enix has ruled that it's acceptable. Not necessarily a planned function, but harmless.

So where's the harm to have a divided populace? The answer lies with people who cannot for the life of them learn to play their jobs. Several people have stated (and I agree) that you can take a seasoned player, regardless of how many jobs they've leveled, and place them in a new job, and they can perform rather well. A bad player will play badly whether its their first level or their thousandth.

Other have stated the issue about Maat's Cap. Paying for an item that was researved for people who strived to place themselves at the peak of performance to acquire a rather potent item and stand out against the crowd of people who either can't or won't achieve what they have... its a hat. Bad players with good gear are still bad players. If you're a good player with good gear, be happy.

Lastly, the topic of skills, and probably the biggest topic. A lot of skills are gimped daily with level sync'ed parties. East Ronfaure (S) parties continue to be a huge staple to lower level parties want to burst through to Aht Urghan areas, and rightly so. Aht Urghan exp parties are fast and furious, the levels coming quickly. A lot of skills are also not necessary for people, as they either won't play that job again, or the skill is a minor one (Dark Knight's using elemental skill, for example). Skill up parties are boring, they take time and patience, the time that people save on leveling when they jump several levels at once via SMN burn. But I view the topic of "LFP for hours vs. one quick SMN burn with some friends" to alleviate this a bit. I would happily go a skill up in the Boya Tree for a few days knowing that I have a 75 BST usable in w/e I might be doing.

The end result: If you don't like SMN burns, don't participate. If you have never done them, don't knock something until you've tried it. If you have and don't like them, walk away with the experience that you know you don't like them, other people do. If you do them and enjoy them, have fun. Spoiling someone else's good time with bitching and moaning, assaulting them by destroying their horde of mobs, or attacking their logic for partaking in a SMN isn't going to do you or them any good.

They back off because griefing farmers is more of a no no than griefing smn burners. "Unclaimed mobs are free to everyone" quote a Senior GM on my server and reporting to a GM "We were mob holding everything in the zone and a farmer came up and started killing unclaimed mobs we were holding" kinda shoots yourself in the foot lol. Killing unclaimed mobs isn't against ToS but mob hording is.

LMAO!

I burn from time to time myself for merits but I don't 10-75 any of my jobs. Was a guy that joined my Einherjar LS that said "I got 75Brd" when the LS leader asked if anyone had Brd. Then he went on to say "But I have no spells for it" >.> Was some laughs over that one. ^^ If you got no songs for your 75Brd then your 75Brd is useless. Even if you bought them all and showed up it is still useless with it's literally 0 skills so prz just don't speak. Reminded me of my Ex, always talking but never saying anything lol. Perfect example of people going straight to endgame stuff right from the burn.

maTt's cap ftl, maat's cap ftw.

I would like to know why there's been a sudden jump to do SMN burns when this method has been around for awhile now?

The sudden jump has come from the introduction of Level Sync.

Before it could be difficult to find 6 people Lv.12~13 and you would only be able to burn once because of level differences after that.

Now you only need to get 1 person around the right level.

Level sync has been around for a long time now. I mean in the past month its like 'omfgbbqsmnbrn!!'

While Level Sync has been around for quite the duration, there has always been "omfgbbqsmnbrn!!" threads, within 1~2 months of Level Sync coming available.

I agree it seems like there are more threads about it, but those threads are mostly "advertisements" for Astral Burn services rather than Astral Burning itself.

i have had smn 75 for 5 years. the only exp that i got as a smn before astral burn parties was solo or campaign battle. i main healed most of 75 levels. why shouldnt smn FINALLY get something! for all the ppl that think we are cheating the system, let me ask this.... how did you do beat cop? i'm willing to beat that majority of you used 2-4 smns for promies/mythrial trackers/bugbear fights. so smn two is good enough to "cheat" you guys through cop, but we cant use it in exp? kinda sounds like a double standard to me. to each their own really. personally if you dont like smn burns why dont you learn to pull for them and stick it to them by taking their gil!

I solo'd all my avatars at 20. I spent most levels main healing. I solo'd bombs at the top of Ul. Range. In a nutshell, I learned alllllllllllllllll about the job because it took me for-***-ever to ding 75. My beef with SMN's who astral burn is that they don't know jack about the job. More often than not, they can't even get 3 AF blood pacts off before the time runs out. But the same applies to most other jobs who go 12-75 in an AF party.

yeah it took me 2 year to hit 75. im a big fan of seeing all blue when checking my skills. i dont mind doing smn burns for me to get merits. if everyone else wants to be a 75 blm that cant sleep a bunny or a 75 monk still doing combo, well... thats just more for me to laugh at.

QFT Please^^. If you're purely gaining merits using Astral Burn then more power to you. After the 1000th hour or whatever of bird parties you're just not learning anything. Same goes for hours of mindless XP Party grinding; It's long and arduous and the periods of learning are all bracketted by periods of excessive boredom and frustration.

When you add to this the fact that this long process isn't designed to build character (lol), but to aid SE's already impressive inherent FFXI time-sink, it loses the veneer of the honourable route to take.

However it'd be nice to think that people take at least a reasonable time to experience their job in a realistic environment before they hit 75; It's the decent thing to do if you plan to interact and collaborate with other players on this game. I've burned once and knocked my SMN from 43 - 52 and haven't done one since, since there's always benefit in exposure to real combat.

So burners from 11-75 with no gaps, consider the more lengthly option every now and then and understand there is great benefit to be gained.^^

Edit* - TeleTubbies taking down PW twice with no /logout ftw!

LoL!!! I'll be damned if im gonna pay anyone for anything on this game. As far as burning, smn was my first 75, I put in crazy hours main healing jsut to get it there, Yea its nice to do a AF burn and get some merits but nobody has to be a *** about it, really i could care less if SE nerfed it.

I get a lot of heat inside and outside for being a AB *** lol. But in all honesty I do it for the merits and the maat cap. Here I am sitting @ 680 merits and I'm still not fully capped, thinking about the alternative... makes me want to /puke.

:O Jogi in an FFXIAH thread? What goes on in the world?

Thats what I said when I seen it Saiya. D:

And I personally agree with Jogi. The alternative to AB'ing is mind numbing. In his case, 680 merits, figure you get 3 in a normal merit pt, comes to 227 merit pts. assume ~2 hours per pt, you're looking at 454 hours of life wasted away.

Take it for what its worth, ad to each their own though..

Smn burned jobs can be more skilled than those who lv'd the traditional way!

Aye, it takes alot of patience and precision to pull it off, even more so than those Qufim TP burn parties with a PL. I think perhaps it's the mob holding that has everyone's panties in a bunch, but of all places this is Korrokola Tunnel, lawl. Heck, used mobs don't even include that many slimes or spiders which could be the only farm-worthy mob I can think of in that zone.

Well not only that, but mainly said it cause I know a guy who AB'd nin to 75 and w/ 245 katana skill and 210ish ninjutsu solo'd the fire bomblett NM, lol.

I can't imagine there being many significant cases of those who are completely clueless to their job's role/purpose because they were ABed to 75. If so they would be surely weeded out by virtually any LS instantaneously.