Thread: SMN and 4.4 Changes

If you haven't seen yet, this is what will be changing for Summoners once 4.4 hits, according to the latest preliminary patch notes:

Radiant Shield - No longer reflects damage to attackers.
Earthen Fury - The effect is now applied as soon as the action is used.
Shadow Flare - The effect is now applied as soon as the action is used.

This is a pretty significant nerf, imo. One of Ifrit-Egi's main selling point for the last several patches has been the ability reflect damage with Radiant Shield. Will these changes make Garuda more desirable? What do you all think?

That is the real question. Will a garbage-tier physical damage buff on 5 party members outdo a 'not garbage-tier but not stellar either' magic buff on 3 party members, of which only 1 is actually a dps?


I think the answer to that is kick the only meta caster out of the comp and replace it with another physical. All good things must come to an end. Its business as usual I guess.

Originally Posted by Sylvain

mmm small question, are the DoT from BRD considered magical dmg or physical? I personally assume "poison" and "wind" are magic damage.

Perhaps with the removal of the shield damage Garuda will see more use.
I mean, it's still a magical TA with a 15s duration.

If your team has a lot of magical damage perhaps it could be worth it (I highly doubt tho)
PLD burst windows aligns perfectly and I'm sure it will get more damage out of this than radiant shield
NIN Ten Chi Jin + Ninki skills could also benefit nicely. 10% for 15s could potentially out weight the radiant shield benefit
SMN itself will benefit from it, this is not negliginle especially considering it's a burst job.
BRD DoT refresh too assuming it is magical, altough this is clearly not worth it compared to radiant shield

healers too, altough I wouldn't hold my breath on the benefit of healers having their DoT under TA+Contagion


I don't think it will outweight radiant shield buff... but who knows, the damage removal could potentially balance things out almost evenly.

PLD buff windows aren't on exactly 60s timers, they naturally drift because of the delay in their rotation (Req comes up during your last RA combo before a GB), so that isn't necessarily going to work.

TCJ could work, but the timing could be awkward since you're trying to catch a TCJ before trick, which means you're putting it up before trick goes up hoping that you'll still get the entire trick duration. TCJ inside TA is bad, that shouldn't happen, but a kassatsu raiten might be a thing.

SMN does benefit but you're still missing out on Ifrit's better personal damage, even with the reflect gone.

Finally, the DoTs from Bard are physical, so they aren't affected either.

I'd need to go through the Balance discord to check, but contagion being worth it in a party requires a fairly large amount of magical burst, that which only something like a BLM could do if it lined up properly. Now that math probably has changed with the change to ifrit, but I'm sure we'll find out what those breakpoints are soon once people like Nemekh take a look at it and make a decision.

iirc they're waiting for full patch notes... but I read it late last night so I could be wrong. Definitive answers will come out though, and I doubt they're going to be terribly positive for Garuda. It'll probably just be 'less bad'.

Just for remember....
At Stormblood, before 4.4, i search what for ifrit is better... and i learn that :
Not for group but for summoner, ifrit is better because he can auto-hit... i look my dps with garuda and with ifrit, and the only real difference is the auto-hit.

Ifrit like a melee ; with instant for gcd and a good damage on auto-hit
Garuda like a caster ; with cast for gcd and no auto-hit except if she go to melee (and i think not possible for garuda)