SMN Solo Thread

gah that sucks :/

oh well

If Cait sith is highly resistant to light element then it might be possible with MC, DG and FF, we'll have to see.

Wait, is there something I don't know about emp staff? Does it reduce perp costs?

It has no effect on avatar perpetuation at all.

Sea Daugher is 5 tic regain, 12.5% slow and 30 tic regen (During the day)

The TP from Sea Daughter is enough to power Myrkr every minute for 20% of my max mp back.

Or you could just use MM, get a rather large damage boost from the INT, and not be limited to full-timing a staff that otherwise has nothing to offer. That's, of course, assuming you're using magic pacts, because otherwise SD seems dramatically less sensible than it already did. Even if you are strictly using magic pacts, the additional TP you're getting from SD is self-depreciated by the slow that goes along with it. The ~65 TP/BP your avatar should be getting is reduced to ~58(which is undoubtedly lower in practice due to regain's tics not lining precisely with BP timers), before considering the additional damage lost from reduced melee swings(which aren't insignificant with RR).

And really, all the napkin math in the world doesn't matter when you're unable to use Terra's and Apollo's/Surya's. The Empyrean staff is a toy for dicking around with friends or adding some damage to a pickup alliance when you're bored between set-proc Heavenly Strikes. Also, Port Jeuno- we can't forget Port Jeuno.

It's not about damage, it's about survivability, MM doesn't give you 30 tic regen, this actually makes a huge difference between whether I have to resummon an avatar or not.

The slow is hardly noticeable and the avatar magic bps lack of extra int is made up by the additional tp.

Before I had hvergelmir I used mm, dc and mc exclusively for soloing while using a magian staff, I can promise you the difference is highly noticeable, and soloing is made significantly easier.

And using an atma that granted a lesser regen all the time wouldn't make a difference, either, nor would it bind you to an otherwise awful weapon. Speaking of which, has anyone ever tried using Ace Angler? Its reasonable to suspect that its active at all times for avatars.

The slow being 'hardly noticeable' doesn't matter. The TP bonus is unlikely to have any edge over MM in the grand scheme of things between the lost white damage and the depreciated value the TP bonus is actually giving.

As someone who's made a habit out of creating mostly useless Empyreans, I welcome you to continue using your staff, but its not better.

Don't have ace angler or the fishing skill to flag the quest, otherwise it would be nice to try.

What other regen atma are there?

Atma of the Mounted Champion.

Vicissitude & Stronghold are two other good regen options, both offering 15/tick. I think Mounted Champion is best, though. Vicissitude *might* win if there's a lot of magic damage, but that seems unlikely as most magic damage should be mitigated by using the correct element avatar. It would still have its uses though, like soloing that awful T2 VNM in Misareaux.

Ace Angler definitely works at all HP for avatar, by the way. Just tested it.

Good to know. The refresh effect on that looks nice too.

Gonna side step the topic a bit;
After reading good points made by both of you for and against one, is a
Hvergelmir worth the effort?

No, not at all.
You'd never use it outside of abyssea and inside it's only good for soloing.

IC Thanks, Eq

It would be good for soloing outside too on smn at least lol (silly crap you can melee obviously)

This is true, though I tend to use the ToM staves for the -6 perp and -10 BP delay and can use my TP for damaging ws to kill the mobs faster (not that smn has many); but that's just me, I'm impatient like that.

Hvergelmir is abusive in Voidwatch considering you get a Dusty Wing everytime weakness is procc'd if you have the proper Periapt.

Has anyone attempted to solo any of the T3 VNM in hero zones?

If you seen me around you know that Im a #1 fan of smn and I love to solo with it. Though often a smn bst duo has been making WotG just plain easy and (/excitement). trust me when I say you can pretty much solo every WotG quests on smn. Even outside of Abyssea i can get good~great refresh with the right weather/day (/sch helps alot) and gear. With /sch i can get back 2mp/tic of refresh (via -storm spells) and because of this i can use soulscourge full time and still get 2~4 mp/tic while having my avatar by my side which is awesome. And with sublimation i can smn long time.I try to solo everything, within reason, on smn and most of the time im successful. If i lose, well, getting mad about the exp penalty after death these days is pretty damn sad.

I tend to favour /WHM sub, there's only been one fight (Bahamut) where I've really needed to manage my MP.

I sub SCH for solo Temenos on the elemental tower, having Sublimation, Aspir and Siphon means no resting; even with Soulscourge.

It really sucks that /SCH will never have Cure IV though.

I tried Maere once. I was going to trio it, but the tank died on pull and so the RDM that was going to heal him just tried supporting me without pulling any hate as I kited it around. It was a complete nightmare (get it? har har). His Stunga is annoying, he hits hard, and most importantly, resets hate constantly. I think several of his TP moves, or perhaps all of them, reset hate. Nightmare was horrible because he'd sleep my avatar then come running for me. We won, but it was as close as they get, and without the RDM helping me there is no way I would've won. I don't recommend trying to solo it.

Ogopogo also seems unlikely as well. The 100hp/tick poison aura would be absolutely devastating to an avatar.

I think Brulo would be your best bet. Try Leviathan against him. I think this one might actually be plausible.

If you can survive an inferno then it should be possible, I've never risked a t3 pop on one so I couldn't tell you.

Doesn't Ducal Guard also reduce DoT? Or is it direct damage only?

I don't believe that it reduces DoT, I was fighting Bugul Noz the other day and it's 100hp/tick aura was killing my avatar pretty fast

Nothing reduces DoT. That's what makes soloing Hedjedjet so hard, Venom Breath causes a 50hp/tick poison aura which is devastating. Fortunately it doesn't last very long. Ogopogo's doesn't last forever either, but it's twice as potent and has ridiculous range, more than 20 yalms.

Equilibrium (and others) - what kind of damage are you doing on say Sedna or Gamayun on an average per physical attack with MM, DG, MC atmas?

I think my avatar attack merits are 4/5 (just need to put the last point in) and my mag attack merits are 5/5.

Does any other stat of ours help our avatar hit harder?

Currently my shiva has 5/5 heavenly strike, and everyone else has 1/5 for theirs.

I still need mounted champion though. I just want to get an idea of how "worth it" doing SMN solo for seals and AF3 +2 drops... based on time spent, and how since i'd probably sub WHM i would have to hope the whm proc spells would happen to work to farm what i need.

Thanks in advance!

On Sedna, damage is low, about 1k per Chaotic Strike and 1.5k per Thunderstorm, obviously use Thunderstorm when his magic shield is down.
On Gamayun you don't want to be using physical BP since she has PDT-50% but you'll get about 1.5 - 2k per Heavenly Strike depending on merits with that atma setup.
If you mean auto-attack then it's about 40-50 per hit.

No, only our Summoning Magic skill affects the damage output of our avatars.

It's definitly worth getting MC, since if drops from a Caturae you'll always be able to find people to help you kill it but when I'm fighting Gamayun I prefer to switch MC for Ultimate for the extra damage boost. 3.5k is my average.

It's also worth noting that it's not worth soloing anything on smn when you need to rely on a red or yellow proc, you'd be much better off just putting a party together.

I'm sure Equilibrium means damage output like this, but to elaborate incase people get mistaken, skill doesn't increase an avatar's attack strength. It affects the accuracy of your physical and magic BPs when you go over the skill cap, which increases damage output in that you'll whiff less often.

Yes, more accuracy and also less spell interuption with a higher summoning magic skill.

This is why I still see 90 abyssea born summoners hit 1k with predator claws