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

It should have been something meaningful. +30 damage per BP isn't even a blip. Maybe 1% per upgrade. So 10% dmg with a maxed out category. I don't see that as too unfair. But +30 dmg for all those JP? That's more a slap in the face than a bonus.

It could be worse. Let's face it, SMN has been getting plenty of love lately.

This is true.

With all the available gear, augments, job points and gifts, a well-geared SMN should be able to be self-sufficient these days.

Btw, SMN just wrecks Escha NM's. It's not uncommon to see 40-50k Flaming Crushes.

Whats the breaking point between good augmented helios pants vs Beckoner's Spats for Merited BP?

Considering I have all of them 1/5 and Shiva's 5/5, should I make a rule for Heavenly Strike to use Helios and the others use Beckoner's?

Beckoner's beats Helios even with perfect 7/30 augment and on a 5/5 merit BP, unless your avatar is at max TP of course.

While on the subject of Beckoner' Spats, I was told to believe that the TP Bonus is only applied on merited magic blood pacts and is disabled on other magic BPs (such as Conflag Strike, Impact, etc). But the most recent update, I read in the 'Resolved Issues' section at the bottom of the page, and it said this:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/46976

I just returned to the game so I haven't really done much testing, and I don't even have Helios gear either. Anyone know if the TP Bonus is now applied to newer magic BPs?

Yes, it even affects healing BPs now.

Are you sure about this?

I'll do some tests later if someone else isn't ahead of me, I still have a pair of unaugmented Helios lying around too.

Awesome. Ty for the feedback.

From what I gather from my old TP bonus test, the +600 from beckoner's spats +1 would probably add a base of around 200 damage with uncapped TP. If that's the case then unaugmented helios legs should win any time the magic pact can do at least 3500 damage.

Edit: I should have factored in the +200 damage increasing the total number once all BP damage+% is applied, if my horrid math is right then
(As an example you have +30% BP damage excluding legs and the pact would do 3500 before gear)
Beckoner's spats +1: 3700+30%=4810
Base Helios legs: 3500+36%=4760
+13% BP Helios: 3500+43%=5005

Then Beckoner's would beat unaugmented helios but when augmented at least decently would blow Beckoner's out of the water (Without taking a +mab augment into account.)

How did you calculate that? Seems a bit strange :O

I didn't calculate it, I tested it. Although it's possible that if the rest of your gear is significantly less than optimal, maybe the results will be different? I'm about 8 MAB and 5 BP damage below optimal.

In fact, my tests were done with Caller's Spats +2 against a 7/30 Helios Spats, and even the Caller's won.

I was surprised as well.

Edit: It's possible I somehow screwed up the test, I'll admit I didn't do a lot of testing, just a real quick spot check. I'm curious if anyone gets conflicting results.

I'm fairly certain it adds a lot more than that. I noticed your testing was from 2012, is it possible the increased avatar level is modifying this increase? Increasing avatar level has a significant effect on the damage of those BPs.

With my gear, 7/30 Helios Spats beats Becknoner's Spats +1 by 877 dmg on Wild Rabbits using Meteor Strike 5/5 (and by 872 dmg when my avatar keep the "ilvl increase" while switching Nirvana > Keraunos but it doesn't always happen)

Ran out to Ceizak to see numbers against the mandies there, Caller's spats +2 added 254 damage with just 119 ammo on too, which is interesting since it means the TP=Damage does have a variable which could have been level like you said.

With my current gear on mandies my BP+10 mab+25 spats beat Caller's +2 by 527. The difference in having no legs on and caller's +2 in all other BP gear for me is 730.

Hmm interesting, I get similar results now. About 800 damage higher with Helios. I'm certain of my previous results though so I'm not sure what's changed between my tests and now.

The only thing I can think of, is maybe I was swapping to the wrong pair of Helios Spats for my test. I checked that religiously after changing augments though because I was still changing them a lot at the time. Can't think of anything else that's changed aside from slightly higher BP damage and MAB elsewhere, which should actually work against Helios Spats not for it.

Do you all use GS still for BPs? Constantly messing up with mine using motes GS, any good ones out there besides motes?

We're talking about it in the other thread you can find in the SMN section.
A lot of us are having that issue but the cause hasn't been found.
Byrth cannot reproduce the issue, which anyway is random and doesn't happen all of the times, and seem to happen more in laggy situations (instances etc)

There might be other causes, or multiple causes.
I don't use Mote's Lua and never did, yet I sometimes get some damage differences with a range that's too big for me to explain in any way other than "BP went off with a wrong set" (either idle/perp or BP_precast one)

If you're having such issues maybe you could try flitering out Pet Midcast in Gearswap (which would still handle precast, aftercast, and midcast for all your other spells) and handle that one through in-game macros using the in-game Equipment swap system.
Several people mentioned it works flawlessly since SE made BP 1,5secs instead of 1.

Yup. The vanilla does indeed work "like a charm" with either <wait 0>, <wait>, or even <wait 1> between BPdelay set and BPdmg set.
Don't use 3rd party stuff because I'm paranoid and with more and more of the updates they've been doing, there is infinitely less and less of a reason to.

What is an example of your macro, I might just do that only for BPs. I never even used the new macro sets before.

I believe Summoner level, occasional weather effect and TP, nothing else.

Surprising find, the old calculation on wiki states it's based off the avatar's level, but it's actually the avatar's max HP. I thought it odd that seraphicaller was adding a tiny boost to the heal (+6 to spring water @0TP) if it really was level based, so I jumped into aby and tested +hp% atma to confirm it. Tested with Garuda/Levi/Carby.

They aren't affected by avatar MND/VIT (including astral flow JP stats) or cure potency+%, not that there's any pet: cure pot gear anyway.

This too, thundersday ticked over as I was finishing testing spring water and it was lowering it from 356 to 320, so the weather/day affects the avatar's element, rather than lightsday/darkday like normal cures.

Oh wow, that's very interesting.
Do you know if things like Abyssea buffs influence this too?

If you mean the cruor enhancement buffs they don't transfer to pets. Tried Allure (+MND) Adamantine (+VIT) and Rescuer (+cure potency) and none of them worked. Sanguine scythe and Impregnable Tower both made a big increase to the heal.

Very interesting information, that means I need to change the setup for my healing pacts to use Seraphicaller.
I used Esper +1 for Blood Boon on all my wards.

If only there was a pet: HP+20~30 augment on Telchine or Helios :3

No, NO! I really need all my gil for Alexandrites right now... do NOT tempt me! ;_;

My sincere apologies for the double post but a dream just came true.

Congrats !!!

`Grats Shiraiyuki !!!!!!!!!