Nerf SMN

[Nyarlko]

Anything that limits when a certain job is useful will equate to "do not use" as far as the playerbase is concerned. If there are any significant "phase" where a SMN can not attack, then SMN will simply be excluded. IMO, that is not a viable solution. I'm not sure that the devs are currently able to specify specific abilities/spells for triggers.. At least, I can't think of a single implementation of something similarly specific. The only examples I can come up with involve spell skill type (as in "Geomancy skill" or "Job Ability" or "Magic") or physVSmagic damage.

"Pet type" does not mean "damage type", it means "BST vs SMN vs PUP vs DRG". Again, I can't come up with any examples of where something similar has been implemented already as most (all?) of the time they are all lumped into a single "Pet" category. Odds are high that anything that could be done right now to nerf SMN pets would affect all four pet jobs rather than just SMN. That nullifies this potential solution unless the devs are willing to add a new combat system which sounds like a lot more work than they are willing/capable of doing with the current dev team.

SMN being able to command their pets from range is the primary aspect of the job. Unlike PUP/BST/DRG, the player is not intended to be doing damage themselves (don't get me started on BST tho..) and damage potential is intended and balanced around the pet being the only output source. It is not a "problem", it is the core design of the job and should not be touched. Range has zero direct impact on damage output, which is the perceived problem here. BLM and RNG can do burst damage at range as well, should they be nerfed too? BLM even gets less enmity from MBing than normal casts, and neither normal/MB give enough enmity to pull off of a tank in SOA+ areas.

[Hawklaser]

Anything that limits when a certain job is useful will equate to "do not use" as far as the playerbase is concerned. If there are any significant "phase" where a SMN can not attack, then SMN will simply be excluded. IMO, that is not a viable solution. I'm not sure that the devs are currently able to specify specific abilities/spells for triggers.. At least, I can't think of a single implementation of something similarly specific. The only examples I can come up with involve spell skill type (as in "Geomancy skill" or "Job Ability" or "Magic") or physVSmagic damage.

The funny thing is, smn has never really been sought for things outside of burning things down with their 1hrs. The phase would not necessarily prevent smn from attacking, but more intended to stop how people use smn to zerg and burn things down. It could be something as simple as if mob takes X damage from one target in Y seconds, use skill Z that is very dangerous.

And as to being able specify and detect specific abilities for triggers, Absolute Virtue. You had to lock it out of reusing specific 2hrs(at the time) by using them within a window of time after it used them. So they have used that type of mechanic before. Which means they can indeed have mobs respond to the activation of Astral Flow and/or Astral Conduit during specific phases. Such as if monster detects one of those abilities used during the non-burn phase, could have it do a large scale charm/amnesia/silence effect, or something similar.

"Pet type" does not mean "damage type", it means "BST vs SMN vs PUP vs DRG". Again, I can't come up with any examples of where something similar has been implemented already as most (all?) of the time they are all lumped into a single "Pet" category. Odds are high that anything that could be done right now to nerf SMN pets would affect all four pet jobs rather than just SMN. That nullifies this potential solution unless the devs are willing to add a new combat system which sounds like a lot more work than they are willing/capable of doing with the current dev team.

Well I forgot one thing, bst pets and drg wyvern still have their respective family types, so it would not surprise me at all if there is already a built in "avatar" monster family. If so they can give monsters special buffs akin to the varied circle JA's that grant bonuses against specific families of monsters as well as killer traits corresponding to what is tied to the avatars, and this would keep it from hitting other pet jobs as well. After all Drg wyvern, and bst pets get affected by killer traits all the time. So skip the pet damage type entirely, and target via the potential "avatar" monster family that is likely already in place on summoned avatars. The varied circle, breaker, and killer skills and traits show they already have stuff in place to specifically target sources of damage, question is do the avatars actually have a family type associated with them?

As to why pet damage type came up, Smn is the only one that does significant amounts of magical damage so would be easier to have a reduction happen to pet magic damage over X, or if needed to all pet damage over X to cover the few physical bloodpacts, as most of the other pets don't output much magical damage on that scale.(never really see pup's in action so I may be wrong on their automation)

SMN being able to command their pets from range is the primary aspect of the job. Unlike PUP/BST/DRG, the player is not intended to be doing damage themselves (don't get me started on BST tho..) and damage potential is intended and balanced around the pet being the only output source. It is not a "problem", it is the core design of the job and should not be touched. Range has zero direct impact on damage output, which is the perceived problem here. BLM and RNG can do burst damage at range as well, should they be nerfed too? BLM even gets less enmity from MBing than normal casts, and neither normal/MB give enough enmity to pull off of a tank in SOA+ areas.

Its not the range that smn does its damage at that is the problem, its the general lack of emnity they generate while doing so. The difference between BLM and RNG to SMN for the longest time has been if they go full out on enemies before hate is well established, they take a dirt nap. Smn just has to take a moment and recast a new avatar, so what is so wrong with Smn risking dirt naps when it fires everything it has off? Which essentially takes away the "glass" portion of their "Glass Cannon" playstyle. Hypothetically, if a tank has to only use one non-1hr emnity skill to hold the attention of an endgame mob when its health drops from 100-10% in under 1m from the rest of the party unloading all their burst, something is very wrong with the enmity generated by all that damage as there is no real risk to going full out with burst from the start. Which is why burn parties are popular, fast and little risk for those that know how they work.

Bst... well that one has always been in an odd spot.... either needed to minimize agro enough so could throw multiple pets at higher end mobs when solo, or use EM's and melee along side them to chain kill DC's much faster for good experience as well. And really, the only reason Bst ever needed to minimize agro was due to fighting mobs that needed multiple pets to deal with in the first place. But Bst has always had the risk of non-jugs uncharming and resisting new charm attempts. Now if there is gear to actually support both pet and bst melee is another problem entirely.

[Nyarlko]

There are numerous jobs other than SMN which is capable of cranking out large amounts of damage in a short time, so any form of your XYZ idea is going to potentially nerf others unless it's sooooo high that even SMN struggles to hit it. (Think like 200k+/6sec XD ...actually some melees can break that too, so nevermind.) It won't do any good for anyone if everyone in top-end gear is forced to hold back.

Didn't think of AV, good catch. ^^ However, even then, that's only 15x abilities that it had to care about. There's a helluva lot more than 15x BP.Rage abilities, which could potentially be too much to process server-side on each and every JA/spell used, possibly including all sources rather than avatar-only. And yeah, I'd bet that it really would require that much work, PS2-limitations etc. most likely limit what can be done at this point.

Totally forgot that the family types of pets are checked/separated within Voidwatch, (I've never done them as PUP/DRG/SMN and BST pets are only ever referenced as generic "pets",) so it actually might be possible to do something with this. Instituting any anti-SMN damage penalty would still only lead to SMN getting excluded from groups. Historically, the general attitude would probably be "SMN got nerfed? Don't care what the nerf was, I'm not using them then." That happened with the BST nerf btw, even though actual damage output was not touched in the slightest. ^^;;

Avatars are part of the Elemental family IIRC, which doesn't have a native killer effect. BGwiki has them listed as "Unclassified" though, so might be wrong. Even if added though, intimidation does not interrupt JAs like Ready, so I doubt this would have any significant impact.

Damage type wouldn't work as a good filter, since a lot of the heavy hitter BP.Rage's are physical or hybrid. Anything that relied only on magic damage type would hit all pet jobs and nerf the already middling magic damage output of BST and reduce PUP to a point where it wouldn't even be worth trying for. A PUP who's geared for automaton magic damage actually can produce some impressive MB numbers, though I've heard it's a serious PITA to do so. Targeting phys damage would be even worse.

Enmity works differently in SOA+ zones/content than in earlier areas. Old areas use the old enmity formulas and it's basically impossible for a tank to hold agro vs any type of DD player. I've done UNMs with a top-end geared PLD and even if I did not touch the mob for 30sec while he popped all his enmity tools, one WS/Ready would be all it took to snatch hate. SOA+ zones/content use a new formula to allow good tanks to hold agro against BLMs MBing for 99999, melees WSing for 50k (plus 99999 skillchain), etc. and is absolutely necessary to allow for jobs to do their things while using the best gear. (Do note that not-good tanks will struggle to perform well in that situation though. XD)

Since ilvl was introduced, BST has not had to worry about any of the issues you mentioned, but instead we now have to worry about pets taking agro from not-awesome tanks. ^^;;; Since we now have to totally rely on jug pets (the vast majority of ilvl NMs and instanced content do not involve any charmable mobs,) it is a bit simpler compared to the old-school style. Every BST I knew BITD favored the {Over there.} style of gameplay, which the devs nerfed a while back citing their "vision" for the job being master+pet fighting side-by-side even though there are no JA/JT/equipment to support that playstyle in ilvl content and have yet to add anything to allow it to be a fully viable playstyle... (Yes, I'm a bit bitter about this issue. <,<;; Sue me. lol)

[Hawklaser]

Didn't think of AV, good catch. ^^ However, even then, that's only 15x abilities that it had to care about. There's a helluva lot more than 15x BP.Rage abilities, which could potentially be too much to process server-side on each and every JA/spell used, possibly including all sources rather than avatar-only. And yeah, I'd bet that it really would require that much work, PS2-limitations etc. most likely limit what can be done at this point.

They don't have to watch for all the BP rage abilities, really just Astral Flow and Astral Conduit are the ones as they pretty much signify the Smn is about to unleash hell. That is if they want to deter smn burning content.

Totally forgot that the family types of pets are checked/separated within Voidwatch, (I've never done them as PUP/DRG/SMN and BST pets are only ever referenced as generic "pets",) so it actually might be possible to do something with this. Instituting any anti-SMN damage penalty would still only lead to SMN getting excluded from groups. Historically, the general attitude would probably be "SMN got nerfed? Don't care what the nerf was, I'm not using them then." That happened with the BST nerf btw, even though actual damage output was not touched in the slightest. ^^;;

Avatars are part of the Elemental family IIRC, which doesn't have a native killer effect. BGwiki has them listed as "Unclassified" though, so might be wrong. Even if added though, intimidation does not interrupt JAs like Ready, so I doubt this would have any significant impact.

People tend to knee-jerk to anything, and migrate to whatever else becomes the Flavor of the Month if they were not playing it because they liked it in the first place. Happens all the time when things get adjusted in the pursuit of balance.

They may not have anything listed on bgwiki, though ffxiclopedia does have them tagged as "avatar", but consider that almost every mob in the game has been associated with some family type as evidenced by Blue Magic and that when the avatars are enemies outside of specific battlefield fights they are often called xxxx avatar. And some of the odd ones, like sea mobs, I have to wonder if they were typed before or after Blue mage was released. Which makes one wonder if avatars indeed have a unique family type. While intimidate doesn't stop ready(which is a status granted from the bst), I do remember seeing pets get intimidated after using ready and sometimes not using a skill. If they have a family type, it doesn't have to be a killer effect, but more like the defense/resistance bonuses the circle JA's give. Heck, if I remember right, some mobs even intimidated players too.

Damage type wouldn't work as a good filter, since a lot of the heavy hitter BP.Rage's are physical or hybrid. Anything that relied only on magic damage type would hit all pet jobs and nerf the already middling magic damage output of BST and reduce PUP to a point where it wouldn't even be worth trying for. A PUP who's geared for automaton magic damage actually can produce some impressive MB numbers, though I've heard it's a serious PITA to do so. Targeting phys damage would be even worse.

Agreed, going after specific damage types from pets would likely cause the most problems overall.

Enmity works differently in SOA+ zones/content than in earlier areas. Old areas use the old enmity formulas and it's basically impossible for a tank to hold agro vs any type of DD player. I've done UNMs with a top-end geared PLD and even if I did not touch the mob for 30sec while he popped all his enmity tools, one WS/Ready would be all it took to snatch hate. SOA+ zones/content use a new formula to allow good tanks to hold agro against BLMs MBing for 99999, melees WSing for 50k (plus 99999 skillchain), etc. and is absolutely necessary to allow for jobs to do their things while using the best gear. (Do note that not-good tanks will struggle to perform well in that situation though. XD)

Emnity fell apart around the time of abysea, mostly thanks to how much damage ramped up around then. It still works fine in normal areas until you cross a certain gear threshold. And as long as not good tanks loose agro to a smn going full out I have no problems, and the agro isn't also gaurenteed to go on to the smn's avatar in that case. Good tanks could hold or easily take back agro from things like benediction back in the day as well without the use of SATA.

Since ilvl was introduced, BST has not had to worry about any of the issues you mentioned, but instead we now have to worry about pets taking agro from not-awesome tanks. ^^;;; Since we now have to totally rely on jug pets (the vast majority of ilvl NMs and instanced content do not involve any charmable mobs,) it is a bit simpler compared to the old-school style. Every BST I knew BITD favored the {Over there.} style of gameplay, which the devs nerfed a while back citing their "vision" for the job being master+pet fighting side-by-side even though there are no JA/JT/equipment to support that playstyle in ilvl content and have yet to add anything to allow it to be a fully viable playstyle... (Yes, I'm a bit bitter about this issue. <,<;; Sue me. lol)

I have yet to get bst to 99 and ilvl content, but I know I found the melee with pet style to be far more enjoyable while I was leveling it. Bst has the axe skill to do well in melee, so its more of is there gear for both bst and pet to function effectively. I heard about that nerf... and that the range for the abilities is too small now for some races.

[Nyarlko]

People tend to knee-jerk to anything, and migrate to whatever else becomes the Flavor of the Month if they were not playing it because they liked it in the first place. Happens all the time when things get adjusted in the pursuit of balance.
...
I have yet to get bst to 99 and ilvl content, but I know I found the melee with pet style to be far more enjoyable while I was leveling it. Bst has the axe skill to do well in melee, so its more of is there gear for both bst and pet to function effectively. I heard about that nerf... and that the range for the abilities is too small now for some races.

Wanna talk about knee-jerks? XD Just look at BST. To address complaints that BST/BSTburns were able to clear content more easily/reliably than other jobs, they overnerfed the range to make it a severe PITA to play the job. They didn't touch anything else like pet or master damage output, but they managed to destroy a playstyle that's been around since the life of the game, but they did manage to chase off all the FOTM/bandwagoners by doing so. Should be noted that not too long after the nerf went live, melees caught up gearwise and promptly began to outperform BST in damage output. lol orz

Extra salt in the wound, they have failed to do much of anything to support the playstyle that they have decided is the "correct" way to play the job.. It is literally impossible to get enough accuracy for both master/pet at the same time to handle 135+ content.

BST JA range is now ~6y from your pet, with a variance based on pet model size (tiger is a longer model and gives a longer range) plus a small variance (roughly .2y between sizes) between races. The variance is a separate/universal issue connected to player model size, but it stands out a lot when you compare a taru to galka at max range for BST since the range is so bloody small now. The range is so small however, that it's not hard to be meleeing less than 90' away from your pet and get the "out of range" error.

... TBH, I have 99SMN, but I don't play it since I don't have space to gear it. I'm posting here because I don't want what happened to BST to happen to anyone else. To me, any form of acceptable nerf would be one that is not actually SMN-specific but manages to curb the immediate burst output out of the gate in general without crippling anyone.

[Clou777]

SMN is not overpowered, there are still many more DD jobs that can out damage SMN easily, Conduit is where SMN shines most though and there is a cost of using it as it drains your MP super fast at the cost of the high dmg, to counter this you need to be a good SMN with knowledge on how to use conduit to its full potential. People need to stop whining about a SMN nerf, SMN was in terrible shape for a decade and is finally now on par with most other jobs and I for one main SMN since launch and even with a good group it still takes some real effort to get aeonics done, especially the reisenjima HELMS.

[Hawklaser]

SMN is not overpowered, there are still many more DD jobs that can out damage SMN easily, Conduit is where SMN shines most though and there is a cost of using it as it drains your MP super fast at the cost of the high dmg, to counter this you need to be a good SMN with knowledge on how to use conduit to its full potential.

My problem isn't so much with smn being strong while using conduit. It is more the fact the defacto solution to just about any hard content quickly becomes throw a lot of smns with conduit and/or flow to just burn things down from 100 to 0 in short order. Any changes I would like to see is more in the lines of preventing mass smns using conduit to be the solution for almost everything. Smns burning down a 20-25% nasty phase perfectly acceptable, the whole mob not so much as it kills off job diversity and leads to forcing people to play stuff they don't like for the off chance of maybe improving what they enjoy yet can't bring to harder content.

[Zeargi]

My problem isn't so much with smn being strong while using conduit. It is more the fact the defacto solution to just about any hard content quickly becomes throw a lot of smns with conduit and/or flow to just burn things down from 100 to 0 in short order.

And that's part of what people don't see. This isn't a SMN problem in and of itself alone; this strategy has been used a number of times before. One SMN can't floor these things, it takes an entire group plus outside aid from COR and GEO. So to curb this type of play style from lazy players, this is a dev situation which need to be on a more creative level. Has much as I'd hate to see it done: The likely fix is to rebuke this style by forcing certain stages or retributive strikes. The first fix is much like the Pandemonium Warden, and once certain thresholds are hit (likely within a certain time) the enemy despawns and reappears with the allies it should have. The second fix is basically if an enemy is killed far to fast that it gives a OHKO move that ends the fight. The second is far more harsh, but would also punish EVERYONE has a whole. Ultimately it's a time sensitive matter, and with most end game things already having a displayed clock, I feel that it shouldn't be too difficult to implement. Those are just my thoughts, but I'm sure there could be more ideas and tweaks to make a best solution that would benefit the game and community as a whole.

[Urmom]

And that's part of what people don't see. This isn't a SMN problem in and of itself alone; this strategy has been used a number of times before. One SMN can't floor these things, it takes an entire group plus outside aid from COR and GEO. .

Not really. Smns are literally soloing T3 reisin. T4s are often with a party or less but yes it often includes a geo and sometimes run with the rest being smns. And that's where the huge advantage comes from. The lower numbers needed to do this means less hp which is what allow these zergs to even happen. Just one more problem caused by the extreme HP scaling

[Ilian]

SMN is not You overpowered, there are still many more DD jobs that can out damage SMN easily

Name one job that can DPS higher than SMN using AC please.