I read some stuff that said that Abyssea has killed SMN, but I find that to be untrue.

For one thing, having a good BP- recast set can really help with procing Pearl lights, and thats with the right atmas (Beyond, Minkin, and Ultimate) to do above 4k damage with Heavenly Strike. Also having -perp gear for keeping avatars out (with the extent of minkin and getting at least 70% of that atma's refresh back) plus having Caller's Pendant can really help with damage, even if you never use assault.

I understand that most people only want jobs that can proc red/blue/yellow on NMs, but for pure damage with no risk, you can't go wrong with SMN. Avatars can bloodtank better than most PLDs out there, and as long as you have 2 or more SMNs well geared trading hate, you can lowman most NMs, as long as you have the "proc" jobs to cover your "needs" of certain items/key items.

Stop killing off jobs in Abyssea, you can find that most jobs are still just as good, if not better, than the bandwagon jobs that have arisen with Abyssea.