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

That was my speculation when it first came out, based on what the augment did. unfortunately that attacks twice augment is regular melee whitedamage hits only, so draum is largely trash.

When you can't put AM3 up there's always Gridarvor.
Pre-aug it used to be slightly better than Nirvana in those situations. Well, depends on the BP, I'm talking about Volt Strike.
For stuff like Flaming Crush there's no contest of course.

Not sure if that Acc/Macc+30 change anything in this scenario anyway, I think it shouldn't but dunno.
More acc should allow for Relic+3 body more easily though?

Gridarvor was never better than Nirvana for Volt Strike, AM3 or no.

There are those on these boards who claim otherwise though, who are we humble SMNs to believe to :3

Really? I must've missed those posts... or blocked them from my memory...

As far as I'm concerned, it's a closed case. When I compare 40 BPD against 15 DA, I can't find a single scenario where the 15 DA wins. Even if I stack max BPD in every slot, and skip all DA gear except pants (even using Regal Belt over Incarnation Sash) the 40 BPD still represents a 6% damage gain over 15 DA. With BiS gear, it's closer to a 10% gain. With NQ gear, it's over a 15% gain. Nirvana is way better even without AM3.

There's only one scenario where Gridarvor has even a tiny chance of winning: If your accuracy is woefully low. Gridarvor has like 20 more accuracy. So if your accuracy is abysmal and you have no options for increasing accuracy, then Gridarvor could possibly win. Like a dude in sparks gear trying to do Reisenjima T3s/T4s... then maybe the Gridarvor argument would hold some merit. But at that point, Gridarvor or Nirvana, their damage is going to be awful and they probably shouldn't be trying to do that content anyway until they get better gear. For anyone else, there should be better ways to get 20 pet accuracy that don't involve giving up 10-15% of your damage.

Hey guys,

Noticed that when using Astral Conduit... my lua didn't seem to keep up with gear changing... Does someone have a chunk they added to their lua to lock BP DMG gear when AC is used? I'm not good at coding.. so any help is appreciated.

Would also like to add that maybe it locks a BP dmg gearset based off of which avatar you have out... Ramuh - phsyical; Ifrit - Flaming Crush set, etc.

I think they may have been confusing that with Was +1 testing where Grid was considered better or virtually even, maybe.

Make a macro or simply type //gs disable all with your BP set that you want equipped on. Gearswap will never keep up with AC spam. best to lock gear manually and unlock when done.

Okay thanks! Was hoping there was something like that.

And if your avatar dies, don't forget to enable your FC set.

It looks like Pergatory's Lua may handle Astral Conduit without needing any special disables. Looks like it just skips the precast phase when doing a BP under conduit. I just set it up for myself but I haven't actually tested conduit.

I know pergatory frequents here, maybe they can answer if that is how it works.

Yeah that's correct, it won't swap BP timer gear if Conduit is up. Although I admit, this sometimes results in the last BP of your Conduit giving you a nasty 30-40 second BP timer. I've learned to accept it since if stuff is still alive by that point, I'll usually be getting a Random Deal, Super Revit, or something anyway.

It will swap you back into idle gear after the BP lands, but that shouldn't cause issues with macro spamming.

Basically with Conduit up, only the server-triggered events should swap gear (when the server says your pet is readying a BP, it'll equip pet_midcast, and when the server says your pet finished a BP, it'll equip aftercast).

Summoners Collar +2 R15 vs Shulmanu Collar for Volt Strike.

Who would win?

Much appreciated. I knew it was somewhere in here, I was just too dumb to find it.

My search fu failed so I figured I would ask.

When switching gear for Blood Pact Delay, if you switch your Staff or Back from Nirv/Camp to Esp/Conveyance, when you switch back does your avatar regain those levels immediately or does it behave like BST gear where its only when the avatar is summoned?

It loses & regains levels immediately. You can confirm this by watching the avatar's HP. Its max HP will go down and then back up again, leaving it below 100% even if it was at 100% before.

This was my hope. Thank you for the confirmation.

How much am I gimping myself if I don't make a Nirvana? SMN has always seemed fun to me and I like the job, but I don't like the idea of grinding out a Nirvana.

I know that I can play the job without one, but as a person that likes to play jobs at a high level, what kind of difference am I looking at here?

Nirvana is the difference between being able to join shout and having to start the shout.

If you want to play it at a 'high level' you'll need Nirvana. High level requires GoB.

You know how sometimes you ask a question and you are pretty sure you already knew the answer....

I figured this was the case but I was holding out hope for someone to say "It's only a 5% difference! You'll barely even notice!"

Eiryl nailed it. Joining shout groups, people will ask for Nirvana. But you can do LS runs and go 16/16 aeonics without a Nirvana, since we have a good amount already (when people show up, lol). You're covering the extra HP already at Gridarvor+master+decent gear and knowing what to do.

I would start with the other stuff first (Apogee +1, Omen accessories, HQ crafted BP gear, Helios, and job points).

For like the thirtieth time this thread, Nirvana is quite possibly the single largest damage boost in the game, not counting sachet ilevel correction. The only edge lost is on magic damage pacts where espiritus and grioavolr still reign.



(if you respond with something dumb to this i will shiv you)

I just recently gained a Nirvana and honestly didn't feel like it was that huge of an increase. I even went from NQ SMN to HQ SMN w/ Nirvana and if anything I'm just more accurate. I actually ran some content side by side with a HQ summoner using Gridarvor and our Volt strikes were pretty smiliar with mine just being ~2-3k ahead. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong or not but it certainly didn't feel like "Single largest damage boost in the game"

This is of course outside of AM3. The first time I whacked something with AM3 up it was quite a huge difference.

There needs to be a giant banner that just stays on everyone who doesn't understand its screen. 24/7

Nirvana doesn't change ***without AM3. You literally won't notice the difference between a grid grio nirvana without it. It is strictly for AM3 usage. (it's pretty good for hybrids even without AM though too*)

Me and a friend got our nirvana recently, went out to conduit a few WoC using it for the first time, I forgot to use garland on my smn (was multi boxing) and our parsed BP average was exactly the same, he got am3, then the second run I remembered to am3 and my average was exactly the same (his went up). Granted I haven't used it much yet but that was kind of a let down, just bad luck I guess(or good luck with multi procs on the non am3 kill).


Increase to flaming crush was noticeable right away.

Like was said already though, if you're the type of person who joins pugs then nirvana is the key, right or wrong it will get you that invite.

Yeah, I was just backing that up. My statement was just in reply to someone saying it was the single biggest increase all around (Or I felt like that is what was implied)

oh my god you stupid ***.

anecdotal observations are not facts.

1. comparing single hits isn't going to get you anywhere. a grid proc vs a nirvana hit will appear to 'win' but the grid procs are rarer, nirvana is a stronger source of sustained damage.
2. even without AM3 nirvana is still the largest boost in damage. that 40 bpd is still double any other staff source, not counting the +2 levels worth of stat mods.
3. conduit spams are poor sources of info if you base it on the total damage done and not on the per pact average.