RR And Predator Claws

Has anyone used RR and SS w/ Predator Claws and seen high damage?

Um all smns with garuda? Though most wont use SS too... actually most anyone wont use SS with RR unless they are using it for the hp since it doesn't add a whole lot

RR helps all the upper level Physical blood pacts, they can all crit, P.claws being the best before just gets boosted further.

Usually for summoner :
Physical pacts : RR / AoA / MM
Magical pacts : MM / Ultimate / AoA or Baying Moon (depends on if I expect to need re-raise without the time to cast it immediately)

Ummm why not any + element ones? They would add alot more than baying moon. Probably more than ulitmate. Then there is beyond that will play double duty with MAB and element dmg

When u said AoA i thought you meant ambition not apoc.

Ducal Guard.
Oh wait...

Let me see I believe avatars have the same MAB trait as blms so assuming no +avatar MAB gear and no other atmas other than the one mentioned ulimate will add 36% dmg. So the +40% elements would be better if you can stay with it. If you are using beyond then Ulitimate would be on par with the +30% ones.

I wouldn't use AoA on SMN unless I expected to do a lot of dying.

For physical pacts I use: RR, Voracious Violet and Gnarled Horn/Dark Depths if I have a source of Refresh. If not, I drop GH/DD for Minikin.

For magical pacts Minikin and Ultimate are definites. The third atma depends on which avatar I am using. Shiva gets Beyond, Garuda Gales, Ifrit Smoldering Sky, etc. There is a corresponding elemental atma for each avatar, although I don't think water gets an attack+ major. (I could be wrong.) I would use Baying Moon instead.

Noxious Fang for water, from Kulkuklan.

Ah, I thought I was forgetting one. The other effects on the atma are pretty crappy though. Levi did not luck out.

Meh most of the +element dmg ones are mostly just good for that for the jobs using them.

MM Beyond and ultimate is beastly heavenly strikes >.>!
/passes out before dasva can say something

/pokes!!!

Yeah right night owl! You can't trick me!

A few things wrong with this statement and you are gimping yourself for physical BPs.

1. Fenrir Eclipse Bite and lvl 71 Physical BPs don't use TP and have no TP bonus. -> VV regain useless
2. The AoA Triple Attack proc is 15% and it SHOWS! -> lolDA on VV
3. AoA is not just for the reraise and instacast Avvies is hot in a bind.

If you have AoA on smn, and expect to be doing a lot of physical BP... please use it!

VV has 50 str too you know...

While insta cast is sometimes nice... the fact you can't rely on it marginalizes its usefulness ALOT

Was wondering has anyone tryed AoA, RR and alpha/omega atma less crit chance then GH but more tripple attack and an attack boost which i seem to remember avatars being low on.

Depends on your equipment for avvie attack, but so far my AoA and RR combonation for Physical BPs puts them in the 3k-5k range for damage on high level NMs.
On the low end I am still hitting 1500-2500 dmg without the Triple Attack proc. I usually put on MM as my third just for low MP maintenance. I can almost guarantee 50 str and 5% DA from VV will not beat AoA Triple Attack proc.

If I were to sub anything for MM for physical BPs, I would probably use Sanguine Scythe to get my crit dmg numbers higher.

SS doesn't really go that good with RR (from a pure DD perspective that is). Probably do better raising your crit hit rate with GH/dark depths or increasing your attack/triple attack rate with A&O

SS seems to add nothing to our avatars crit damage when paired with RR. Perg did some testing that indictated that smn pets perhaps already get a % of natural crit damage(BP-wise). Which isnt surprising considering that smn pets work different from our chars and them having already a natural -50%pdt makes me think theyre other boosts they have we havent resolved.

Seems, RR+ str atma + crit/refresh atma seems to be the best combo to have for BPs like predator claws. Avatars dont seem to cap fstr(atleast not atm from testing) so they benefit from str still.

If any questions you can ask Pergatory(asura) as he did the testing, or Kegsay(Quetzalcotl) as he usually does extensive testing on smn.

Yea, I forgot that A&O has attack on it too. So this if I were to sub out anything for MM. RR, Apoc, A&O all the way! I still cannot see any benefit for using VV for physical BPs over Apoc, unless you do not have Apoc.

Hito is correct, avatars seem to have a native crit damage bonus of at least 20% because Razed Ruins caps it. I, too, expected SS to be awesome but it didn't seem to do anything at all if combined with RR.

Additionally... that triple attack is doing very little for your BPs. Those 3-5k Pred Claws you are seeing, that's all Razed Ruins. Has nothing to do with Apocalypse.

I don't have any links to the testing anymore, but extensive testing was done on avatar double attack back when ACP was released because people were wondering if "Pet: Double Attack" would make a good BP augment for Royal Redingote. As it turns out (and I tested this myself in addition to what people posted, by building a pet:DA piece) additional attacks on a BP do not gain any of the modifiers the BP itself has. They are just normal attacks. So a triple attack proc on a BP will add about 200-300 damage.

So far the best combo I've found for physical seems to be: VV+RR+GH.

Pergatory hit most of it in his post, but I just want to reiterate a few things. I am not gimping myself in the least.

1. Obviously the physical pacts don't require TP. I use VV for the +50 STR. Double Attack and I am assuming by extension that Triple Attack do very little for the physical multi-hit pacts as it only adds a normal attack.
2. You don't understand the mechanics of damage on the pacts.
3. Instant cast for one is not a guarantee and should not be necessary if you know how to properly kite. If you do find yourself in a pinch, cast a spirit. If you've been managing your hate adequately, it should be able to pull hate off of you long enough for you to put some distance between you and the mob to recast.

The greatest single stat that will help pump up the damage on your physical pacts is Critical Hit Rate. That is why Raized Ruin and Gnarled Horn are fantastic. Tests have shown that ATK and Double Attack do very little for BP damage. The 50 STR on VV will outperform the 40 STR and ATK on Stout Arm. The STR is essential to raise the base damage of your pacts.

And as a side note, the Regain is nice for you the Summoner if you are needed to help proc blue or red weaknesses.

Compared to the others it is still the weakest though. Ice and Light have MAB also on it. Fire also has mag crit hit rate. Earth and Wind have MACC on them as well. Thunder lacks a good 2nd nuking attribute but the reduction in physical or magical damage is a nice bonus. Darkness is the only other one without a good second atma for the magic, unless the resist amnesia is actually useful.

I find myself using Grand Fall (and water in general) more than I would have thought. A slightly better atma for it would have been nice.

Ducal Guard Atma shouldn't be cast away so easily. Yeah pets aren't invincible anymove but recently a SMN buddy and I went and duo'd Ironclad Severer. Our Leviathans were getting hit for 19~40 dmg per hit. One of it's TP moves peaked at 300 dmg. Our Leviathans were able to keep themselves alive indefinitely with Spring Water BP.

For Severer I used MM/Ultimate/Ducal Guard Atmas to form a pretty good combo. Leviathan's Grand Fall was doing about 1.5k to 2.5k since most of my merits are on Garuda's Wind Blade. Depending on your gear, MM atma should be more than sufficient MP-wise. It does get a bit tricky since Severers melee attacks inflict amnesia. Leviathan resits or briefly gets explosive amnesia but it CAN somtimes interrupt your BPs. If you are subbing RDM the fast cast helps you recast Leviathan fairly quick.

tl:dr Ducal Guard atma is still a viable option depending on your target. Physical damage isn't mitigated entirely but it does considerably extend the life of your Avatar.

True but lol light nukes and ice/light is only 30% while the others are mostly 40%. And really smn can use whatever element fits them. Nukers are going to stick with ice/thunder and everyone else that uses elemental ws aren't going to care about macc or magic crit rate so much

Levi has never been amnesia'd ever for me, i'm almost certain it's immune, but ironclads stun effect will interrupt BPs and stop you being able to execute them.

Reverse if you're using ramuh, highly resistant to its stun, but can get amnesia

Ramuh would fare pretty well with Atma of the Lion I would bet.

I just got atma of gales for garuda and noxious fang for levi, and they are *** amazing, added 900-1k dmg to them with MM/gales or MM/noxious.

Gonna play with them some more tomorrow :D

Beyond also has 30MAB on it though. That is why BLM's were Blizzard crazy in Abyssea before they got Bliz V. And I pointed out light because it is on the atma. The lol isn't necessary. And it most likely will be important if SCH gets Comet in the next update.

The point I was making is that the other elemental atmas have better overall nuking stats than Noxious Fang. It doesn't matter whether or not the particular element is popular with players. (Although I would point out that the elemental weaknesses for the higher NM's in Abyssea is fairly varied). MAB, MACC and Mag Crit rate are almost always going to be useful for magical damage. Resist poison will not be. Yes the +mag attack on the atmas is the most important stat but some of the atmas are better overall than the others. That is not a comment on the usefulness of Leviathan or Tidal Wave. It is just an observation on the atmas themselves.

And Leviathan can be amnesia'ed. He is resistant to it because fire is its weak opposing element but he is not immune.