Spirit Guide by Spira

Start
Spira made a great study on the spirits... Here's for you guys if you haven't seen it yet:

"As SMN, alot of us are completely not aware of the ability of Elemental Spirits. Many do not bother, but there is potential here to be discovered, that (if effectively exploited) is capable of breaking SMN away from the "i can only do 1 thing per minute" stereotype.

In any case.. Here is what I found and will share with you today. If u find any piece of information to be incorrect from personal experience, please tell me. Lets gather as much information as we can.

I will start with the most basic of the basic. (pardon me, but not everyone knows all this)

A Study of Elemental Spirits
There are 8 Elemental Spirit that can be subdivided into 3 categories.


 * 1) Group I : The Elemental Cycle Spirits
 * 2) *Earth Spirit
 * 3) *Fire Spirit
 * 4) *Air Spirit
 * 5) *Ice Spirit
 * 6) *Thunder Spirit
 * 7) *Water Spirit
 * 8) Light Spirit : The Healer
 * 9) Dark Spirit : The Irregular

All Spirits have the same perpetuation costs at the following levels. Perpetuation Cost

Summoning Magic Skill and the Spirit Casting Timer(outdated)
The higher the Summoning Magic skill, the less time is needed for Spirits to perform Direct Cast (cast a spell immediately when you get hate/aggro after leaving the spirit out)

As level increases, the minimum time required for Direct Cast increases.

At Lv75 SMN a rough formula to calculate the relationship between SMN Magic and Spirit minimum casting timer is time required (in seconds) = (-3/11)(smn magic skill) + (1016/11) (for a spirit cast on its own day. eg. FireSpirit on Fireday)

Some people prefer to count by perpetuation tics. I'm not so sure which is more accurate.


 * At any given level, the relationship between SMN magic skill and timer is linear.
 * Elemental Staves do not affect spirit cast timer in any way at all.
 * Astral Flow DOES affect the timer (haven't tested this well enough yet)
 * Summoner Spats also affect the timer (don't have it to test out by how much)

Effects of Weather and Day(outdated)
The timer formula uses the condition that it is cast on its own element day.
 * For Spirits cast when not in its corresponding element day, timer value + 3
 * For Spirits cast in day of element it is weak to (eg. FireSpirit cast on Watersday), timer value + 6
 * For Spirits cast during its corresponding single weather effect, timer value – 2
 * For Spirits cast during weather effect of element it is weak to, timer value + 2
 * For Spirits cast during weather irrelevant to their element (not same or weak), no effect on timer.
 * For Spirits cast during corresponding or weak double weather, I've not tested this but I'm assuming -4 and +4 at this point in time

Better timing formula
The formula is: (all levels)
 * Casting Time (secs) = 48 + (max Summoning Skill - current Summoning Skill) / 3 (all levels)


 * If Spirit is cast on its day, -4 secs
 * If Spirit is cast on Weak day, +4 secs
 * If Spirit is cast on its weather, -2 secs
 * If Spirit is cast on weak westher, +2 secs
 * If using AF2 Spats, -5 secs
 * If using Astra Flow ---, -5 secs
 * Light spirit in buff/healing mode, time = time / 2

So if you keep your skill maxed it will cast at 48s. if you have lots of gear it will cast sooner. or like most smn it will take forever.

Spells Behaviour
This is activated by Doing this resets the Spirits Casting timer (as does commanding it with any pet command) This is the method to be used to make Spirits cast spells immediately upon aggro. In solo situation, any mob you claim will have main hate on you so the Spirit will begin casting and start attacking In party situation, if the mob is already facing another person and you cannot draw hate to yourself (even for a split second) then the Spirits will remain idle.
 * Spirits will only attack mobs in offensive mode.
 * 1) Commanding the Spirit to attack a mob
 * 1) Getting main-hate from a mob

Group I Spirits
(further research into this is in order)
 * Spirits cast spells aligned to their own element.
 * Spirits cannot cast spells if they have not learnt any at their level.
 * The 1st spell they cast can be of the Attack tier or Debuff tier. It is random.
 * The exception to this is if they only have learnt 1 spell at that level.
 * The level at which they can cast these spells are the same as that which a BLM, RDM or WHM may get it, whichever comes earlier.
 * Spirits either cast nukes or debuffs, never protective, curative or enhancing spells.
 * Spirits never cast -ga spells.
 * For nukes, they will always cast the highest element tier spell. If they can cast Ancient Magic then they may cast it instead of the highest tier spell.
 * For debuffs, they will cast with no preference (but always of the highest tier eg. Poison II)
 * Spirits will not cast any debuffs that either you or the spirit have already sticked onto the mob. (unless it starts casting the spell at the same time as you)

Notes: For some reason, Thunder Spirit cannot cast Stun.

Light Spirit
This is a unique one...

This mode's behaviour is identical to the Group I spirits. When members of your party or alliance have yellow or red HP, Light Spirit will switch to healing mode. This mode does not require a battle target. This is the default mode that the Light Spirit is engaged in when it does not have a battle target.
 * Light Spirit works in 3 modes.
 * Offensive Mode
 * Healing Mode
 * Light Spirit will use either the highest Cure or Curaga spell depending on how many members in the party or alliance have low HP.
 * You can be playing solo, and Light Spirit will still use Curaga spells as it pleases.
 * Light Spirit can cast all its healing spells on any member of your alliance This feat is unique to the Light Spirit only.
 * Buffing
 * Notes
 * Light Spirit will not cast any buffs already on you (even if its a lower tier shell/protect)
 * Light Spirit cannot cast -ra buffs
 * Light Spirit can only cast Regen I and not II or III
 * There are only 4 types of spells Light Spirit can cast (i.e Protect, Shell, Regen and Haste)
 * Light Spirit tends to buff you first before proceeding to buff your party.

Dark Spirit
Dark Spirit works like Group I spirits but doesn't really have any Attack spells.
 * Dark Spirit is the only Spirit that can cast a -ga spell Debuff (i.e Sleepga)
 * Dark Spirit treats Sleep and Sleepga as 2 different spell categories.
 * Dark Spirit seems to casts its spells at random.
 * Dark Spirit will continue to hit the mob after casting sleep
 * Any hate gained from Dark Spirit's Sleepga is attributed to Dark Spirit only.

Equipment that affect Summoning Magic Skill
Link to somepage item list http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/advanced-search.php?job=smn&affect=summoning

List of equipment that affect Spirits perpetuation costs

Link to somepage item list http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/advanced-search.php?job=smn&affect=perpetuation

See also the elemental staves http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/advanced-search.php?job=smn&level_min=51&level_max=51&search=staff

The NQ staves give -2 for its according element and +2 perp cost to the one weak to it. The HQ staves give -3 for its according element and +3 perp cost to the one weak to it.

Other ways to improve the efficiency of your elemental spirits
Pump a max of 5 merit points (lv 75 only) into Elemental MP Cost. Each point makes their perpetuation cost lower by 1.

Do look thru the rest of the thread for the findings of all the other SMN who have posted their findings on Spirits..

^_^ go go Summoner

Credits
To all SMN who helped to collate information for this study... -Spira SMN / Ragnarok"

minor changes -Elfiwolfe SMN / Phoenix

Original Link: http://ffxi.killvoid.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=75469 Copied again from ShirtNinja wiki