SMN is destroying battle content. Please consider adjusting it.

[Shiyo]

Except it takes just as much support, coordination, and gear to pull that off with SMNs as it does melee. If you don't know what you are doing as SMN, your numbers are not going to be all that impressive. Most of the Nirvana SMNs I've talked to also insist on running in for at least one WS to setup aftermath for pets, so they are not entirely able to avoid mechanics all the time if they actually want to actually "do things right". I know there are more than a few NMs that have AOEs that are greater than max distance as well (since I've died to them on BST when I thought I would be safe.) It is not actually as easy as you seem to think it is to pull off those <60sec kills.

I understand logic. I love logic. You don't use logic in your anger fueled posts like this one. Oh, and my smileys aren't going anywhere. ^^

Stop defending a blatantly overpowered class and making this game worse by making SE think some players are ok with something completely destroying this games difficulty and turning it into a joke. Why do you want this game to be WORSE OFF and not BETTER? Why do you want cheesy boring braindead strategies to run rampant and be the norm? Why do you want the game to de-evolve into a state where everyone is going to be playing summoner and not even using this games battle system(skillchains + magic bursts) to kill things properly with skill and teamwork?

Players like you posting opinions are horrible for the game as a whole, and you need to stop. Just don't post anymore, and let informed people tell SE how things need to change for the game to be more enjoyable and better.

I have no idea what you think you're doing by having these opinions, but they are bringing NOTHING POSITIVE to the game at all, you need to stop posting them and keep them to yourself. If you want to see this game get better and become the best it can be, I highly recommend you listen to my advice.

[Rawfury]

The only people defending SMN are the people who can't win without it. I have nirvanas(plural), apogee sets+1(plural), and just about everything else SMN could have.

I've killed everything that's SMN burnable with SMNs, I've killed everything that's RNG-able with RNGs, I've killed everything nukable with BLMs, and I've killed everything meleeable with BLUs.

To even pretend that SMN is anywhere near the same level of difficulty is laughable at best. Sure, a melee burn can kill albumen or WoC in 2 minutes. To do that, they need 4-8 songs, 2-4 rolls, at least 2 idris or otherwise great GEOs, a dedicated tank, an attentive healer, and there's still some chance they'll die. Melee need TP sets, WS sets, and ideally hybrid or DT sets to maintain survivability. So bare minimum to successfully win, you're looking at 8 players with 12-15 gear sets. Most groups will need more players/sets to do well.

Meanwhile, SMN needs 2 rolls, 1 GEO, 1 RUN and to pop their JAs. Someone who's never played COR before could put 2 rolls up successfully. Someone who's never played RUN before could flash, foil, elemental sforzo, odyllic subterfuge in a row with a simple instruction. GEO needs a geomancy casting set(or just idris and nothing else), COR needs a barataria ring off the AH, and RUN can do fine in sparks gear since they will not die during odyllic subterfuge. SMN needs a volt strike set, and nothing else. So, bare minimum, you're looking at 5-6 players with about 4 full gear sets between them.

There's no comparison. None. Zero. Zilch. The only reason to pretend otherwise is because you're incapable of winning with a challenging strategy and can't bear the thought of losing your free wins.

[Nyarlko]

I'm gonna have to stop you because while it still takes some it 100% takes less support, coordination and gear to smn things and it's the entire reason it's become popular (well combined with hp scaling). Support literally can do it with none but the absolute most used is a geo, run and cor (the cor being able to mule ahead of time). For AC burning you literally just need a good bp set though having a fast cast set is very good idea as well. And coordination is cor: if you have one put the same 2 buffs up before fight. Then when mob pops geo cast your 1-2 spells run flash and use sp on mob.

As far as AM... thing is outside of a few mobs that do things on pop/pull the first couple of seconds of any fight are extremely safe with the mob having zero tp and every nm since forever being designed to get worse at lower hps. The biggest danger is them meleeing a non tank popper to death right away. Also remember while AoEs can go far in fact can even go past farther than you can see in the log... they can only do so horizontally. If you watch the some of those AC burns you can see how they specifically choose their spawn points on hills to take advantage of the fact all AoEs have very small vertical ranges.

Let's not forget bst got nerfed hard for doing decently less dmg than melees could but with the safety of a rng. Or how blu kind of got roundabout nerfed by way of gear options and making some of it's advantageous less important just because it was one of the better dps melees (but not the best) but could do so without as much support. Or how way back in the day rngs were doing as much dmg as melees but because of safety and no use for haste could do so with less support.

100% less support would be 0% support, which is not the case. Pre-pop buff/drop COR is also a thing for melee groups due to HP scaling, so that's kinda iffy as a point. BRD doesn't really apply to SMN (or BLM) output though, so we're still looking at using both of the other relevant support jobs. If a group comprised of only SMN was the norm and still pulling off <60sec kills, then I'd see this as being a bigger issue.

I've been splattered by AOEs at the bottom of the hill in Reisenjima and I'm sure that I was more than normal max casting distance at the very least, so I personally don't like relying on height differences to avoid AOE if possible.

I don't want what happened to BST to happen to any other job. I don't play SMN, but I do sympathize with them as a fellow pet job. Kneejerk over-nerfing is always a bad thing. Even though I am quite irritated that there were no accompanying adjustments to JAs/traits to encourage master melee, I can still kinda/sorta get what the devs said was the reason for the BST JA distance nerf, but the concept of a SMN swinging away next to their avatar just isn't there compared to BST lore. (You also forgot about the more recent anti-Death nerf for BLM on certain Geas Fete NMs, but no one complains about manaburn setups popping out 99999s..)

From what I can tell, a simple adjustment to JP categories might be in order to tone down a bit of the extreme difference between 0JP/2100JP, but calling for the removal of an SP ability is flat out ridiculous. For example, simply changing the bottommost category ("Blood Pact Damage") from "3" to "2" per point would drop BPD+20% alone, so there are definitely other things that could be adjusted if tuning is needed. There is no need to remove anything if solutions could be found by simple changes.

BTW, does anyone know how much BPD+ a BIS/master SMN has? I'm curious about how much of an impact something like my JP suggestion would have on gameplay in a practical sense.

[Rawfury]

BPD job points add to the base of the blood pact, they aren't a percent multiplier. Here you have a perfect example of one of these 'elite' smns that worked so hard to get where they are, not even knowing the basics of their own job.

While nobody wants an over-nerf, the reality is that it's obscenely overpowered right now. A weak nerf will not change anything besides the gear requirement on the SMNs. Since you're only acquiring a single set, it's still very attainable no matter how high the bar is set. People will rush to make the same melee RMEA over a 5-10% damage gain, meanwhile SMN is doing double to triple the next best job's damage during a zerg.

No amount of gear requirement will make this cease to be a problem, it'll just make it even more exclusionary. For a nerf to be sufficient, it needs to prevent even perfectly geared SMNs from being able to kill NMs of this magnitude during a single conduit. As long as SMNs are able to kill the NM within 30 seconds, odyllic subterfuge will guarantee them a win and it will continue to be the prevailing method of doing just about every fight.

[Nyarlko]

BPD job points add to the base of the blood pact, they aren't a percent multiplier. Here you have a perfect example of one of these 'elite' smns that worked so hard to get where they are, not even knowing the basics of their own job.

I don't play SMN, though it's leveled and skill capped, plus templating and terminology are the same as BPD from gear. Pretty easy mistake to make I'd say. Does the Magic Damage category work the same way? I assumed so, but my assumption that BPD+ works like gear was wrong, so probably good to ask.

[Shiyo]

No, calling for Astral conduit to be disabled until time can be spent to readjust it, which is literally the only reason SMN zergs works is NOT ridiculous. It's common sense.

[Zeargi]

BPD job points add to the base of the blood pact, they aren't a percent multiplier. Here you have a perfect example of one of these 'elite' smns that worked so hard to get where they are, not even knowing the basics of their own job.

Nyarlko never claimed to be an 'elite' SMN though, just coming to the defense of them. Just saying. >_> I've already spoken my peace in the two other topics on the exact same thing....

But if it's that important, let's talk this out:

* People use this tactic as a means to keep out of range and limit the HP growth of Aeonic Weapon monsters (Which is the only thing I hear that people are actually complaining about)
* People say that AC is "broken", but this is a half truth: The damage of 1 SMN can be competed equally by any job. It's when 3 or more SMNs are against a single target that this becomes an issue.
* Melees are punished with extreme AoEs, growing HP of Mobs, Full Clears of Debuffs on mobs, Scores of player debuffes, and the chance of death and lack of recovery due to weakened.

So, What can be done to balance it out? Shiyo's idea is just going to begrudge people if they simply remove the ability all together and cause greater backlash as this is a 1hr ability. Saevel's idea of forced weakened destroys the job as a whole and would make it unplayable for those that want to solo outside of events. Limiting the charges of AC MIGHT do something, but I would likely guess it would then just force all the SMNs to be 100% perfect/BIS for everything and cutout all others and narrow it for those that will be allowed to complete it even more. As well as it really limits the usage if a SMN decides to help out in other ways like Spring Water/Whispering Wind/Soothing Ruby/Healing Ruby Spam or a rapid Raise 2 fest in an alliance (Which I have done and saved a run because enough people could get back up.)

So, what does that leave...

The Mobs themselves and the players with other jobs. Personally, I believe that changing the mobs of these Aeonics would be the best and easiest solution. It would then require people to use other jobs if they could no longer breezing through the mechanics, but the other jobs could use a boost and bit of support as well. Shiyo, so lovingly points out that Melees can die and weakened is the biggest problem. As I've mentioned before Reviviscense is already part of the lore within the game, and would be a great tool to give WHMs. The problem then is its time limit, AoE, and what can be done for the other "Healing" class, SCH, to balance it out (Even though they're just MB openers now). The other thing that should be looked at is full status clears for NMs. The most statuses that can be removed at one time on players is 6, and that is via SMN's Soothing Ruby. So why can't they change Esuna to completely clear off all of the -na status in one go like in other games, rather than force a WHM or SCH to spam each of the -na spells only to have to do it all over again. Give SCH and WHM this NEW Esuna would help them manage things more and to give WHM the edge still, the effects of Misery could add the effect of Erase+ to it. Erase+ could remove 1 non-normally removable status like: Amnesia, Charm, Mute, etc.

I love SMN it's been my favorite class since I first got to play it back in the earlier titles, and it's always been a beastly power-house. So it's been nice to finally have SMN in FFXI be that force to be reckoned with as it's suppose to be a forbidden art. But I don't like that there are people that bandwagon things and make things not fun for others. I live on SMN, it's my main class and likely the only job I'll go through the pain of making a Mythic for. But there has to be something that can do to even the playing field and make it so that people will stop using cookie cutter bull****. I don't enjoy fighting with people over things like this, but there is a solution that can make everyone happy.

[Rawfury]

SMN can do in the range of 700,000 damage in 30 seconds with conduit. The best case for a perfectly geared melee with many, many more buffs is ~250k damage in 30 seconds. So, no, 1 SMN cannot be 'competed equally' by any job. In fact, no job can even do half of what SMN can do in 30 seconds.

Why is the 30 seconds number so important? Odyllic subterfuge lasts 30 seconds, and reduces the monster's land rate for all magic to the minimum value. This provides an incredible safety net and allows SMN based setups to forego all defensive strategy for those 30 seconds. Even given that melee can catch up by the 3-4 minute mark, they have to account for all of the damage and debuffs in play.. and are looking at a 6-8x longer fight.

Adjusting 7-10 aeonic NMs and debuff removal is not really a fix, either. It will still be SMN burn tumult curator, SMN burn master trials(at least b&w is already being done this way), SMN burn omen.. everything new that comes out will suffer the same issues as well. Adjusting all content design is a laughable solution, SMN's damage is hilariously unbalanced atm and the only way to resolve this is to correct that.

Even if you were to follow through on these ridiculous suggestions, allowing such free status removal and removing threats to melee just trivializes the game in general. It's very balanced as is, with a wide variety of setups able to clear these NMs by utilizing coordination and teamwork. The only exception is SMN, who just needs to flail their ctrl-1 macro for 30 seconds and collect loot.

It's pathetic how hard you guys are reaching to try to justify things staying how they are.

[Zeargi]

SMN can do in the range of 700,000 damage in 30 seconds with conduit. The best case for a perfectly geared melee with many, many more buffs is ~250k damage in 30 seconds. So, no, 1 SMN cannot be 'competed equally' by any job. In fact, no job can even do half of what SMN can do in 30 seconds.

Why is the 30 seconds number so important? Odyllic subterfuge lasts 30 seconds, and reduces the monster's land rate for all magic to the minimum value. This provides an incredible safety net and allows SMN based setups to forego all defensive strategy for those 30 seconds. Even given that melee can catch up by the 3-4 minute mark, they have to account for all of the damage and debuffs in play.. and are looking at a 6-8x longer fight.

Adjusting 7-10 aeonic NMs and debuff removal is not really a fix, either. It will still be SMN burn tumult curator, SMN burn master trials(at least b&w is already being done this way), SMN burn omen.. everything new that comes out will suffer the same issues as well. Adjusting all content design is a laughable solution, SMN's damage is hilariously unbalanced atm and the only way to resolve this is to correct that.

Even if you were to follow through on these ridiculous suggestions, allowing such free status removal and removing threats to melee just trivializes the game in general. It's very balanced as is, with a wide variety of setups able to clear these NMs by utilizing coordination and teamwork. The only exception is SMN, who just needs to flail their ctrl-1 macro for 30 seconds and collect loot.

So basically you're saying this is solely about the time it takes to kill something and not that others can do it... >_>

And I really want to know where you're getting this 700,000 number from. I'd like to see that really. I'm far from the best SMN as it, but I've never reached anywhere near that number on any endgame thing

It's pathetic how hard you guys are reaching to try to justify things staying how they are.

Hey, at least I've been offering some ideas, it's better than most of the post here. So, rather than trying to cut people down and use nothing more than insults to NOT help the problem, why don't we ACTUALLY brainstorm and come up with something

[Rawfury]

I'm getting the 700,000 number from actual parses of t4 using full BiS SMN. I did not isolate conduit or do a hard statistical analysis, but typically the numbers seen are in that range. It's entirely possible if you strictly count conduit pacts and not an initial apogee usage, the average would be as low as 550-600k. This is 18-20k DPS.

That said, the highest spreadsheet damage that has been observed is SAM, with warcry from a WAR active, as well as secondary 1h, they can push around 12k DPS. Over 30 seconds, that's 360k. In reality, between the loss of WS speed and attack delay from communication intervals, potential debuffs, and other problems, I have yet to see a melee top 10k DPS for a full minute, even though many I know are perfectly equipped by today's standards. Don't forget that this is including buffs from (at least) 2 GEOs, 2 CORs, and 2 BRDs. SMN only needs one GEO and one COR to put out their numbers.

The fact of the matter is, when buffed properly SMN does damage that far exceeds all melee. Nobody has killed Schah before dealing with adds using a non-SMN setup. Other zergs are rarely below 2 minutes from engage, while SMN's are consistantly below 1 minute and usually below 30 seconds. It's very easy to state and support that SMN has a colossal dps advantage despite having significantly cheaper (and less) gear needed to do so. Thus, any argument in favor of keeping SMN as is, should address and support that they should be able to do that much.

Perhaps if every fight was long enough that cheap zergs weren't a possibility, I could understand it. SMN certainly has a history of strong 1hr usage, and there've been many mission fights where astral flow was the go-to strategy. However, it's very clear to see that SE's design resources are quite limited these days, and expecting an overhaul of the entirety of endgame just so SMN can continue to be overpowered is laughably shortsighted. As is, you can trivialize over 80% of the content players would consider challenging by simply abusing SMN's 1hr.

edit: forgot to address first point

So basically you're saying this is solely about the time it takes to kill something and not that others can do it... >_>

No, it's about the effort required. A SMN based setup can kill in 30 seconds vs 2 minutes. This alone doesn't mean much. It matters because combining a 30 second kill with odyllic subterfuge removes all need for defensive capability.

The setup can be executed with 5-6 members using a total of ~4 full sets of equipment between them. The COR and GEO can be pretty near naked, and the RUN only needs a bit of ilevel gear to avoid dying to physical damage(which is a non-issue on almost all recent monsters).

A successful melee zerg needs at least 8 members, usually closer to 12. All of them need multiple gear sets, coordination, and teamwork to do this properly.

The ability to kill in 30 seconds is what's making the difference here. If SMN were forced to take 2 minutes, they would not have all these advantages. It's not the difference in time that matters in itself, it's the difference in fight flow caused by that difference in time.