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

Is it confirmed that HP only scales with 6+ on Schah? Thought 3 was the baseline for all of Escha. Also, 4 COR buffs = 7.

I thought 3 was the baseline for everything, I think Dasva did some UNM testing too some time ago?

Escha and Unity NMs HP don't scales with less than 6 participants unlike in Delve and Incursion.
For instance, level 135 enemies have 350k~ HP and level 150 enemies have 1,2m~ HP with either 3 or 6 participants.

I thought Dasva posted some reports about UNM mobs scaling down to 3? If it wasn't Dasva it was someone else but I clearly remember reading some detailed tests about UNM scaling down to 3 on BG-forums.

Are you sure the Escha thing isn't something that only applies to high tier NMs? Becuase I sure as hell remember killing those T1 Zi'tah NMs solo (i.e. HP scaled down to 3) than with a full party.
Some were literally dead with a single SC from me being SCH/RDM.

I have read conflicting testimonials about this as well, the original test definitely said it scales past 3 in escha. I remembered the testing was done on Zitah T1. The only explanation is

1) Original bg test was wrong
2) Some NM, such as Zitah T1 scale past 3 and higher lv ones scale past 6.

I know for sure they don't scale with <6 (Escha and UNM lvl 135~150). I'm not 100% certain for the lower ones but I'll be a bit surprised if it's not the case.

I rest a bit unconvinced that scaling does NOT go down to 3 for easy Escha stuff and easy UNMs.
But then again I can't completely rule out a bias.

How do you guys reliably test this? K-Parser?

Scoreboard + the good old method of removing a big chunk of enemy's HP with a 1~2 strong attacks and see what % it lost. As Summoner it's particularly easy for me to get an idea with BPs.

Naked sch setting up SCs, BLM Death bursting for max damage. Do it with 3 people in party, then with 6. Should be quite noticeable if it scales after 3 or 6.

Hey all - picked up a Grio the other day, and wanna augment it to be superior to my Path C Espiritus for magic pacts, and then will switch my Espiritus over to Summoning Skill for buffs. The BG wiki does not list anything for the Familiar options, nor does it list BP damage as a category which I am pretty sure I've seen on them before (assuming it's not there since it'd be familiar only, which doesn't have any data yet). And I want to get an idea for what my options are and ranges may be so that I can set my minimum standards I will accept before I start.

Any info is appreciated, thanks.

What should I be getting with my first few Ambuscade backs typically?

Pet: haste +10, acc/racc/atk/ratk +20, atk+10

Pet: Macc/Mdmg +20, Regen +10, MDmg +10

Fastcast +10

Totally did not get my good side. I usually opt for Garuda on conduit spams, The damage is not that far behind Ramuh and the savings in MP means more bpacts during conduit provided you go at maximum speed. I won each parse with Garuda by a significant margin. I will fraps the next kill when I get back home.

Now that Khatvanga is done I can work on my transition to /sch.

Been wondering; Adad Amulet or Shulmanu Collar for Flaming Crush?

Adad Amulet

Idk if avatars have native enmity - for their damage but I have noticed for a long time that they don't seem to follow normal mechanics like players do. This can be incredibly useful and also incredibly annoying. I did an omen earlier for FU with SMN + BLU for dd and I was doing nonstop 99k flaming crushes and Ifrit didn't get any attention off the tank at all, even during astral conduit. Our BLU however... did one 99k ws and immediately got one shot for it lol. I have also noticed when I am soloing that I can do a bloodpact then cast something like dia or phalanx and whatever I am fighting jets right for me. I have used this a lot to keep my avatars alive longer while kiting in a refresh set instead of staying in a pet -dt set.

Idk weather to complain about enmity issues or abuse that fact that Summoner has a free Coronach. It can be rather annoying when I am meleeing with my avatar solo though because I usually draw attention and end up tanking...

Need more opinions: Speaker's vs NQ Varar for Magic BPs and Flaming Crush?

On magic pacts, utility of 2x Varar vs 1x Varar + 1x Speakers often relies on how much MAB you have.

I believe Speakers beats out Varar with Nirvana on (no swap situation) but Varar beats out Speakers with Grio w/ BP+10 and a good MAB augment.

We're talking about marginal gains here.
The gains for Varar +1 is obviously greater.

When it comes to a hybrid pact like Flaming Crush, it's a bit tough to judge. Is the magical hit worth more or less than the two physical hits. Is the mob evasive? What about attack?

I actually go with Adoulin pet ring + Varar on all my physicals for the extra attack and accuracy. And i'll be getting the +1 ring for that.

That said, I think you'll get fairly similar results from 2x Varar and 1 varar and 1 speakers unless fighting a mob with some weird gimmick that Flaming Crush is exploiting.

Nope! Speakers is 6 mab. Varar NQ is 3 bpd. In a balanced gear setup, Varar NQ is worth about 7.5 MAB (a 1 for 2.5 ratio). Varar +1 is worth about 10 MAB.

In situations where you'll be doing a magic damage pact, you should be using a grio, so all that MAB from the staff skews varar to be (much more) better.

Use Verda's calculator to confirm it, but if you have a setup where speaker's is pulling a 1 to 2 ratio vs bpd, you have an unbalanced gear set and should look to fix other slots first.

Ideally you can swap in grio but as I noted, if you don't swap to a nuking stick Speakers > Varar. And there are many reasons why you may not want to swap.

Soloing and relying on bp and weaponskills.

The difference is tiny enough I wouldn't really recommend even spending for an extra NQ varar to replace a Speakers for 1.5 MAB if they already have access to Speakers.

I know we like to speak in theoretical min-max gear sets, but that would also have to account for every situation, which includes not swapping in for a nuking stick.

If Varar also had M.Acc maybe it'd be more enticing.

Verda released a calculator? Wut?
Where? :o

I still use Espiritus for magical BPs btw.

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46440/the-6th-ministrys-secret-a-summoners-guide-v2/66/#3205552

Does anyone want to put together a tp set as well as ws sets? I'm pretty much screwing around with that to make the 4 rema staves more than just lockstyle.

Maybe this is the wrong place to put this...

I'm a returning player, have been back for a month or so now, got my basic gearsets down for the most part: full AF1+1 119 and Relic+1 119 along with Grio(Augmented with path A) for physical, Eminent Pole for magical, Evans/Gelos Earrings, Varar Rings, Sancus Sachet (just hit 100 JP recently), the Ambu capes, etc. When my friend and I do JP parties he spams Light and I burst off that for ~30k bursts which feels great and is a lot of fun. I just managed to get my BP timer down below 30s which is awesome and I'm enjoying playing the game again. Eventually plan to get Nirvana and all that, but that's months and months away at minimum. Working on my Beckoner's Horn+1 currently.

But then I tried Sinister Reign the other night in a party with 3 BLUs, a COR, and a WHM, and me. I've never felt so incredibly useless. My Physical BPs were doing like 7-8k if I was lucky, Magic was around the same. I could still burst for ~30k, but they spammed WS' too fast to make that feasible. Is this just a terrible party for a SMN to be a part of? I had thought I was progressing really well on my way to being a useful player but this really took the wind out of my sails. A lot of the gear options listed here kind of require the ability to do that style of content, so now I'm at a loss as to how I'll even improve enough to be entry level to that stuff.

Does anyone have any advice as to how to do that kind of content? What does SMN *do* in that kind of party? What kind of gear should I be focusing on? I've been reading the first few pages of this guide and working towards the gearsets and trying to absorb some of the great math that's been given in this thread, but I felt kind of at a loss of what to do with myself outside of "just mindlessly spam flaming crush or pred claws and just accept your current damage because that's what it is and you'll get better with gear". Anyone have any advice to how to support/dps in those types of parties?


I apologize in advance if this is a bad place for this, if it is please feel free to ignore. Thanks.

When fighting higher level monsters, you're going to be very reliant on buffs/debuffs/equipment to do effective damage. With no augmented merlinic and/or apogee gear, relatively low job points, and no buffs you're not going to see amazing damage in SR(or higher content).

Even just a GEO for frailty and someone doing dia2 will make a colossal difference in your physical pacts. That said, at your current level of gear you might be better suited working as a support role when doing higher end content.

Ramuh/Ifrit's favor are significant boosts to blu DPS, crystal blessing from Shiva is great for DD who's ws damage scales with http://ftp. Diamond storm helps if DD aren't capped accuracy, crimson howl helps if DD aren't capped attack. You won't be on the same level as a BRD(especially now), but you can add damage through the DPS while still doing a bit yourself.

As your gear improves, you won't feel as weak vs higher content, but a key part of doing effective physical damage is having dia/frailty. A key part of doing high magical damage is having malaise. So without a GEO, even with perfect gear, you're going to see much lower numbers than with.

Appreciate the response Comeatmebro, thank you.

I was keeping Ifrit out for favor (along with howl) for the BLUs, but seems like I need to get a pet DT -% set, he died fairly easily. Crystal Blessing seems to get overwritten by the COR's Samurai Roll (I mentioned that but they didn't seem to want to use a different roll). I'll keep the Dia comment in mind, I didn't even think about using Dia2 myself or asking the WHM to use it.

I've done a handful of the escha ru'aun NMS (got my Met's earring) but haven't seen any abyssal abjurations yet. I'll keep working on it.

Again, appreciate the tips!

Crystal blessing neither overwrites nor is overwritten by samurai roll, just so that doesn't get spread around. (Just tested myself to make sure.) It's actually an entirely different stat.

Samurai roll gives more store tp, increasing the TP DD get per swing.

Crystal blessing makes weaponskills count as if they had 250 more TP than they actually did.

Huh. Weird. I definitely used it when we first got inside but it went away almost immediately. I'll try it again next time and see if I can figure out what sniped it.

Telchine is your friend. If you're using Nirvana use a combination of store tp and accuracy/dex.

Enough Store TP to get to 6 hit build, enough perp/refresh to even out your mp drain then the rest into Acc/Dex. With most of todays gear you get haste with pretty much everything.

Telchine hat/legs/feet (store tp, accuracy, dex)
Hagondes body +1 (with -perp)
Ambuscade cape (accuracy/store tp)
Goading belt
Chirich x2
Combatants Torque
Zennaroi/Steelflash earrings

You're WS set uses all accuracy gear for landing skillchains/debuffs on high level mobs. The ambuscade set is good for this but you can also use an Onca Suit.

The only WS's were you focus on something else is usually just Myrkr/Garland.