SMN - Why it is not a very interesting job and not a good upgrade from ACN

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Originally Posted by Kevee

No.

Never use Ifrit after 40.

Ever.

For any reason, except solo farming lower-level mobs(so it's easier to group them as Garuda would pull one out of the pack).

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ifrit is better at clearing dungeon trash till you get too the boss then just summon garuda,but his higher dps on all attacks and his auto attacks focus down a target faster then garuda can.
That's what i got from my experience so far.

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Originally Posted by LostCody

ifrit is better at clearing dungeon trash till you get too the boss then just summon garuda,but his higher dps on all attacks and his auto attacks focus down a target faster then garuda can.
That's what i got from my experience so far.

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Ifrit does less DPS than Garuda.

Note: This post isn't directed at you, I just don't want to type and post it again. So don't take it as being an ass to you.

Note2: Remember, the parser is 100% accurate for the pets. Everything is in the combat log, and no DoTs.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

There is no situation, ever, in which you should use Ifrit over Garuda. Did you even look at the link?

I just went and updated my parses for them since I got some gear upgrades.

http://i.imgur.com/F8BZkKF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/F8BZkKF.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/UTBNuye.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UTBNuye.jpg


Ifrit does less DPS than Garuda and offers nothing.

Period. If ranged need to stack in melee, PLACE GARUDA IN MELEE. Not like there's really a fight that needs that, and Egi's take reduced AoE damage anyways.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

Ifrit does less DPS than Garuda.

Note: This post isn't directed at you, I just don't want to type and post it again. So don't take it as being an ass to you.

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how long was that test going on for?
i have not done any solid testing of my own but i assume with ifrits higher base on all spells and his auto that he would make up the difference or go past it when the 45 second downtime between contagions is up.
post note2:note.no dots,no contagion??so your telling me in just a straight up slugging match garuda beats ifrit even thu he has higher potency spells and auto attacks between them?
how is that possible?not trying to be a prick but seriously explain that too me haha

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Originally Posted by LostCody

how long was that test going on for?
i have not done any solid testing of my own but i assume with ifrits higher base on all spells and his auto that he would make up the difference or go past it when the 45 second downtime between contagions is up.

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Garuda - 82 minutes
Ifrit - 74 minutes

I have updated parses I haven't posted of both going over 2 hours and showing the same results.


For whatever reason(and do note, Ifrit DOES scale off of Int), Ifrits 120 potency attack is hitting for ~60 less than Garuda's 100 potency.

My guess? Ifrit scales off of the physical damage on books, Garuda scales off the magical damage.

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Originally Posted by LostCody

post note2:note.no dots,no contagion??so your telling me in just a straight up slugging match garuda beats ifrit even thu he has higher potency spells and auto attacks between them?
how is that possible?not trying to be a prick but seriously explain that too me haha

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Yes, it was just them on OBEY on the dummy.


As I said in the above post, it's either bugged or Ifrit scales off the physical damage on the book, while Garuda scales off the(much higher) magical damage on the book.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

If you've ever played a MNK, not really.

And SMN is involved in watching timers and planning animations.

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Currently playing a monk and I personally disagree with you.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

Yes, it was just them on OBEY on the dummy.


As I said in the above post, it's either bugged or Ifrit scales off the physical damage on the book, while Garuda scales off the(much higher) magical damage on the book.

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Ifrit-egi is sort of bugged which explains his lower dps. Someone tested this and came to this conclusion (which I realized is true as well)

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/117...=1#post5912814

Basically, skills not going off as they should is what makes Ifrit the lesser dps pet.

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Originally Posted by shinros

Exactly I wanted a summoner someone that commands and deals their main damage through pets.

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Exactly.

SMN is fun. My main frustration with this job is when i die, because i lost a significant amount of time to stand up, re-summon, use food, cast Aetherflow then start the rotation again.

Well, first, you shouldn't die =P

But if it was raid damage that killed you instead of standing in stuff, you should be able to just, Aetherflow -> Swiftcast -> summon.

You're out for like 5 seconds at most.

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Originally Posted by Kikosho

Ifrit-egi is sort of bugged which explains his lower dps. Someone tested this and came to this conclusion (which I realized is true as well)

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/117...=1#post5912814

Basically, skills not going off as they should is what makes Ifrit the lesser dps pet.

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Yeah, I just went and tested what was in that post.

There is a delay, but it's not always a full second.

It's never instant, though.

Even if it were going off instant, it'd only be a ~5-10% increase over Garuda, and that's nothing compared to Contagion use. :/


Alhough once parsers are finally working, we will have to parse it out because Ifrit will mean we keep our spell speed passive buff up more.

Actually, not having contagion makes us lose ~4 GCDs every 3 minutes. It is a bit more than that, but because of the way I rounded in my analysis it comes to between 4 and 5 GCDs lost.

Since those would be used solely for ruin, you lose 320-400 potency (a bit less because miasma and thunder have hit damage).

While the pet provides ~5500 potency total, so a 10% increase would be better than having garuda up.

You also lose the extra 15 sec over RS, which means you lose 145*5*0.2...or 145 potency from DoTs over RS.

So if it is 10% more damage, it will eek out a win to use Ifrit (if it worked correctly).

Contagion is so much more fun though, I hate bio and how short it is.

Of course, on cleave fights, longer AoE fights where contagion bane is useful, and on any fight with lots of boss movement, Ifrit loses by default.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Actually, not having contagion makes us lose ~4 GCDs every 3 minutes.

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Don't you mean every minute?


Also parsing now, Ifrit on SIC is more DPS. It's hovering around 62 DPS.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

Don't you mean every minute?

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Hmm, no, its over 3 minutes, so that is 2 contagions.

On my previous thingy it rounded out to be:

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Bio2 has 30 seconds of uptime per cast, with an additional 30 seconds from 2 contagions, so we need to cast it 5 times. Without contagion, 6 times.
Miasma has 24 seconds of uptime, with 30 seconds from 2 contagions, so we cast it 6.25, or 7 times. Without contagion, 7.5 times, or 8 times.
Bio has 18 seconds of uptime, so we cast it 8.3 or 9 times. Without contagion, 10 times.
Thunder also has 18 seconds, so we cast it 9 times. Without contagion, 10 times.
Sflare has 30 second uptime, so we cast it 6 times. No Change
Miasma 2 we cast twice, during contagion. We no longer use Miasma II, instead Ruin II twice, which amounts to a loss of 40 potency over 3 min.

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So w/o contagion we only lose 4 GCDs in the way I rounded up before. Without rounding, it comes out to 1+1.25+~3.33, or 5.5 GCDs.

Without rounding, you lose ~446 potency due to missed Ruins, and 40 more for losing miasma, makes it out to ~486 potency.

Is that better or worse than ifrit vs garuda? Might be worth checking out.

EDIT: oh, also because of missed 145 potency from lack of RS uptime, you instead come out at ~631 potency loss.

EDIT2: That means that contagion is ~3.8% personal dps increase, not counting pet damage.

EDIT3: I forgot to mention, that one of the huge benefits of Contagion is the amount of mana you save.

Putting up a full rack of DoTs costs nearly 800 or so mana, and 4 Ruins is less than half of that. This is a significant issue when you don't have a bard.

Yeah, I honestly had a brain fart.
"Derp, Contagion gives us 5 GCDs per use!"
Contagion does give us extra time, but it just(for the most part) displaces our Ruin casts. As you're saying, it's actually a minor GCD gain over 3 minutes.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Hmm, no, its over 3 minutes, so that is 2 contagions.

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Ruin II instead of Miasma II would be an 80 potency loss. 160 vs 240.

I thought Miasma II was 20 initial + 10 per tick.

25 seconds total is 8 ticks (well, maybe 9 I suppose, but 8 guaranteed ticks), which is 20 + 80 per, right? So you lose 20 per ruin.

Hrm, there are a few more things I forgot.

Since you have to refresh thunder and bio within RS, you instead lose 20% additional for those two displaced Ruins, so you lose 32 more potency.

However miasma and thunder have cast potencies, and you gain 30*1.666 + 20*1.25 = 75 potency.

So you lost actually 43 less than I assumed, so you lost about 588 potency.

Based on eyeballing calculations, this is slightly more than 10% of garuda's dps.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

I thought Miasma II was 20 initial + 10 per tick.

25 seconds total is 8 ticks (well, maybe 9 I suppose, but 8 guaranteed ticks), which is 20 + 80 per, right? So you lose 20 per ruin.

Hrm, there are a few more things I forgot.

Since you have to refresh thunder and bio within RS, you instead lose 20% additional for those two displaced Ruins, so you lose 32 more potency.

However miasma and thunder have cast potencies, and you gain 30*1.666 + 20*1.25 = 75 potency.

So you lost actually 43 less than I assumed, so you lost about 588 potency.

Based on eyeballing calculations, this is slightly more than 10% of garuda's dps.

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20 Initial, 10 per tick. 15s. + 15s from Contagion.

So 70 + 50 from Contagion. 120 per Miasma II cast.

Isn't Miasma II only 10 seconds long? So while Contagion adds 5 ticks (50 potency) the original miasma II only does 20 + 30 (3 ticks in 10 seconds).

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Isn't Miasma II only 10 seconds long? So while Contagion adds 5 ticks (50 potency) the original miasma II only does 20 + 30 (3 ticks in 10 seconds).

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No, it's 15.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

No, it's 15.

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Oh okay, all the sites say 10. Was too lazy to check ingame.

And so adding in another 40 potency lost basically means the initial number is correct.

Either way I never use miasma II (mostly just to spite you, Kevee).

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Oh okay, all the sites say 10. Was too lazy to check ingame.

And so adding in another 40 potency lost basically means the initial number is correct.

Either way I never use miasma II (mostly just to spite you, Kevee).

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http://xivdb.com/?skill/177/Miasma-II

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Originally Posted by Kevee

What precedent?

Because, you know, they haven't.

I mean, the original summoner(Rydia) learned Black Magic, Poison, Bio, Drain, Osomose, etc.

Garnet/Eiko weren't thematically based around their summons.

Yuna was, thematically, based around her summons -- But they were useless besides meat shields to soak up a hit every now and then. That isn't really displaying a "summons" or "summoners" power.

So, again, how is there a precedent?

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In every iteration where Summoners were an identifiable job they had one class command - Summon - and with the exception of perhaps one summon in their entire arsenal they were largely elemental and not death, decay nor disease-based.

(continued)

In FF3, Evokers had White/High Summons and Summoners had... just Summons.
In FF5, Summoners - you guessed it - primarily Summoned high-damage AoE attacks. Sure you could give them Black Magic, but that was true of any job. FF6-8 didn't have a specified Job, but I can't think of any Summons that inflicted Poison or Sap or whatever depending on the installment. Even if they did, they were rare.
Tactics? Offensive element-based summons with a focus on burst.

XII shifted eidolons from silent protectors to fallen angels hellbent on destruction, so that's a point for the other team, and I can't comment on X-III as I haven't completed it entirely.

Eiko and Garnet both primarily used Summons offensively (Eiko got Holy but that wasn't until the end of the game), Yuna's Sphere Grid is entirely white magic until she cheats and borrows from someone else's. I must have played differently than you, because I recall using aeons on nearly every boss fight both offensively (Grand Summon, etc) and defensively.

Nowhere is death and decay the theme. In fact, I would argue the opposite - Rydia, Eiko, Garnet all are capable of white magic at some point in their games, whereas only Rydia is capable of casting decay-themed spells.

I'm also kind of sad I won't get to cast Hellfire, Judgement Bolt, or Diamond Dust. :P

There is a recurring theme that Summoners depend on their summons for their damage output.

That is no longer the case.

Now it is based on magic the summoner wields (which is different from abilities the summoner uses, note the distinction) and NOT the power of the summon he controls, particularly with a focus on decay and disease.

This irks me.

Again, I love the job - but the sudden shift in thematic design is very jarring. It makes sense for an Arcanist I suppose, but I disagree with it matching the theme of the Summoner.

actually ifrit has way way more dmg than garuda when it comes to auto attack and killing trash. you are suppose to use ifrit for trash and garuda for bosses bc 15+ from contagion is useless on a AK speed run. Ifrits' abilities excel on killing multiple adds quickly one after the other now when the boss contagion and garuda are way better than ifrit bc the dots and survivability come into play. As a smn you should be using ifrit and garuda interchangeably.

if any1 think im making those numbers up do a little research ifrit is actually very good just have to know when to use it obviously dont use it versus titan HM or something but for ak speed runs and CM and pre boss in coil its very useful

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Originally Posted by Borfin

In every iteration where Summoners were an identifiable job they had one class command - Summon...

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Not really.

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Originally Posted by Borfin

There is a recurring theme that Summoners depend on their summons for their damage output.

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Uh, No. Again, Rydia, Eiko/Garnet, Yuna, etc. In tactics it was ultimately better to dual-wield whack things. If you needed to AoE, you used a Calculator.

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Originally Posted by Borfin

I must have played differently than you

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Yeah, you played sub-optimally. Summoning has never been that strong. You always had better options. They feel powerful, yeah.

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Originally Posted by crisvok

actually ifrit has way way more dmg than garuda when it comes to auto attack and killing trash. you are suppose to use ifrit for trash and garuda for bosses bc 15+ from contagion is useless on a AK speed run. Ifrits' abilities excel on killing multiple adds quickly one after the other now when the boss contagion and garuda are way better than ifrit bc the dots and survivability come into play. As a smn you should be using ifrit and garuda interchangeably.

if any1 think im making those numbers up do a little research ifrit is actually very good just have to know when to use it obviously dont use it versus titan HM or something but for ak speed runs and CM and pre boss in coil its very useful

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No.

You are wrong.

Read the thread(s) before posting this.

Garuda, currently, does more DPS than Ifrit on Obey. On Sic, Ifrit does more DPS(3), which is not enough to off-set being melee and not having contagion.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

Not really.

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Care to point me to a Summoner/Caller that didn't have Summon/Call?

6-8 didn't have Summoners or Callers, neither did 12. Besides that, Esper command was a Summon command, as was GF.

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Uh, No. Again, Rydia, Eiko/Garnet, Yuna, etc. In tactics it was ultimately better to dual-wield whack things. If you needed to AoE, you used a Calculator.

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I liked the part where you ignored my evidence to the contrary on Eiko and Garnet. Besides that, whether a strategy was ultimately better to dual class with or yoink abilities from is irrelevant to the theme of the Summoner job.

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Yeah, you played sub-optimally. Summoning has never been that strong. You always had better options. They feel powerful, yeah.

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I never said it was and I'm not sure why you're trying to claim that I did. I said "the summoner's main source of damage output was his or her summon". With the exception of perhaps Rydia (which is debatable depending on the level you got into Bahamut's cave at - and even then, throughout the vast majority of the game her Calls outclassed her black magic by a very large margin until she gets the -3 spells and were competitive even then) and borrowing abilities from other Jobs this has always been the case.

None of that has anything to do with the core issue I have with the thematic change which is, again, a switch from elemental and burst to death, decay and disease.

Are you sure you're arguing with the right person? You seem to be taking issue with lots of things I never said.

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Originally Posted by Borfin

Care to point me to a Summoner/Caller that didn't have Summon/Call?

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You didn't say that. You said that "Summon" was their only command.

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Originally Posted by Borfin

I liked the part where you ignored my evidence to the contrary on Eiko and Garnet. Besides that, whether a strategy was ultimately better to dual class with is irrelevant to the theme of the Summoner job.

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Eiko/Garnet are evidence towards my point. They weren't better off summoning, and in fact it was a detriment to the whole party because of the way buff mechanics worked in 9.

It's not, if you think part of the theme of Summoner is to be "powerful."

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Originally Posted by Borfin

I never said it was and I'm not sure why you're trying to claim that I did. I said "the summoner's main source of damage output was his or her summon". With the exception of perhaps Rydia (which is debatable depending on the level you got into Bahamut's cave at - and even then, throughout the vast majority of the game her Calls outclassed her black magic by a very large margin until she gets the -3 spells) and borrowing abilities from other Jobs this has always been the case.

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That's my point. A summoner's main source of damage is, more often, not summons. Not for Rydia, not for Yuna, not for Eiko/Garnet, and not for Tactics summoners. 3 is unique in that it was their only command, iirc, and I never played 5 or 6.

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Originally Posted by Borfin

None of that has anything to do with the core issue I have with the thematic change which is, again, a switch from elemental and burst to death, decay and disease.

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Death, decay, and disease has off-and-on been a part of the theme. RE: Rydia, off-classing, Lich/Doomtrain/Hades/Etc summons, and biggest of all, FFXIV. Which, you know, is itself a FF game and makes an example towards that type of Summoner.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

You didn't say that. You said that "Summon" was their only command.

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Oh, you're one of those. They had a dedicated command that existed solely for the purpose of summoning. Happy now?

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Eiko/Garnet are evidence towards my point. They weren't better off summoning, and in fact it was a detriment to the whole party because of the way buff mechanics worked in 9.

It's not, if you think part of the theme of Summoner is to be "powerful."

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Read my lips: Offensive capabilities centered around the summon. How strong they were is irrelevant. Besides that, white magic is hardly death and decay now is it?

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That's my point. A summoner's main source of damage is, more often, not summons. Not for Rydia, not for Yuna, not for Eiko/Garnet, and not for Tactics summoners. 3 is unique in that it was their only command, iirc, and I never played 5 or 6.

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Except that Rydia's calls outdamage her spells while she's a child, her tier 2 summons outdamage her tier 2 magic and her tier 3 magic is quickly rendered obsolete by Leviathan and Bahamut. Oh you still use tier 3 spells - when the enemy is weak against them.

Flare and Meteor are so far into the game they're not worth mentioning.

Besides that, in order for Yuna to be offensive she needs to borrow from someone else's grid. Garnet receives nothing offensively, Eiko receives Holy at the end of the game. All three of them if they choose to be offensive will utilize... dun dun dun... their summons.

Again, the fact that they use white magic supports my argument AGAINST the decay theme.

(continued)

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Death, decay, and disease has off-and-on been a part of the theme. RE: Rydia, off-classing, Lich/Doomtrain/Hades/Etc summons, and biggest of all, FFXIV. Which, you know, is itself a FF game and makes an example towards that type of Summoner.

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Part of the -game- yes. But it was never a core summoner theme. Lich, Hades and Doomtrain were all the single solitary examples of decay-themed summons in their games among 14-20 other summons that were not. Everywhere else it required offclassing.

How are you claiming it's part of the theme of the job if it's not part of the job to begin with?

Are you even reading?

Lore-wise, yeah. Their offense was centered around the summon. Practically, or mechanically? No.

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Originally Posted by Borfin

All three of them if they choose to be offensive will utilize... dun dun dun... their summons.

Again, the fact that they use white magic supports my argument AGAINST the decay theme.

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No, they won't.


Physick. Resurrection. Eye for an Eye. Rydia. Summons not being the main focus of supposed Summoners. They don't have to match the "decay" theme.

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Originally Posted by Borfin

Flare and Meteor are so far into the game they're not worth mentioning.

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Lol?

Not this again....
lol... wasn't this like mentioned already, like 5 times?

Just suggest improvements rather than banter over what a summoner is, prephaps suggest something to make a summoner more like the summoner you want...
For me, if they changed icons, effects and ability names to something less, "disease" related would be cool, maybe some of your avid fans might have a suggestion?

eg, Change BIO name and icon to ___________

How about we think up some actual constructive adjustments? Things like changes to how stats scale to Ifrit/Titan or being able to use commands while spellcasting...

The (Un)Official Arcanist/Summoner Feedback Thread is always looking for constructive discussion.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

Lore-wise, yeah. Their offense was centered around the summon. Practically, or mechanically? No.


No, they won't.


Physick. Resurrection. Eye for an Eye. Rydia. Summons not being the main focus of supposed Summoners. They don't have to match the "decay" theme.





Lol?

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Do you actually plan on arguing a point of mine or are you simply going to argue semantics all day?

(P.S. Yes they will. Your statement is "no they won't". So tell me what Eiko, Garnet and Yuna will do if they wish to deal damage before A) the final dungeon in FF9 or B) using someone else's abilities, i.e. multiclassing.

Or just stop talking. You haven't actually countered an argument in any of your posts, so that might be preferable.)

Um...I think Holy.

I think I used Holy like, all the time, cause its always been the best thing ever.

EDIT: ps a lot of the summoners had white mage backgrounds too.

Would be neat to steal some white mage abilities (though I guess with Physick and stuff we're kinda stealing).

I think I stopped using summons shortly after I got them in almost every FF. They just lost their usefulness after the characters that use them get better spells. I pretty much spammed Holy with Eiko and primarily used Garnet as a healer. Same deal with Yuna, although the Aeons served as a decent meat shield.

If you took away their secondary abilities they have nothing left. FFT went this route with the summoner class. It was somewhat useful until spellcasting became worthless... unless you put on the Arithmetic ability and just Holy'd all the things on the screen.

Something I haven't seen on the forums but thought about for summoner was making Enkindle more usable/viable, possibly at the cost of Fester. This would not only eliminate the WoW Affliction Warlock-vibe a lot of people (including myself) get from the class, and put more emphasis on the pet. This would be a very simple mechanic to alter and I feel like it would make a world of difference in making one feel like a Summoner.

EDIT: Not to imply Enkindle should do more damage necessarily, but reducing the recast time, or maybe making it an Aetherflow ability instead.

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Originally Posted by Ardan

If you took away their secondary abilities they have nothing left.

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Actually, in every iteration I can think of up to 10 (except perhaps Evokers) summons have been on-par (or slightly below - in other words competitive) with other sources of damage - so long as you progressed in the story and achieved the "rare" summons. Tier 2 summons rivaled tier 2 spells even single target - generally slightly less, but not always. And the difference wasn't all that massive. In order to be competitive with Tier 3 spells' damage you generally had to have the higher end summons - the ones you don't get normally progressing through the game.

Summons in Tactics were absolutely deadly. Perhaps not the MOST deadly (calculators are just flat-out broken), but you definitely don't want to get caught in a Titan during the game's progression. The positioning requirements and vulnerability of the summoner was primarily what made summoners weak, not the summons themselves.

(This has absolutely nothing to do with my issue with the theme, just something I felt needed clarifying.)

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Um...I think Holy.

I think I used Holy like, all the time, cause its always been the best thing ever.

EDIT: ps a lot of the summoners had white mage backgrounds too.

Would be neat to steal some white mage abilities (though I guess with Physick and stuff we're kinda stealing).

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Only Eiko and Yuna got Holy and that wasn't until they'd fully progressed through their levels/grid - roughly 90% of the normal game.

Not to say it wasn't good - once they got it it pretty much outshone everything they had. But there was barely any of their games left at that point, unless you include optional content.

Even then Madeen was almost as powerful, while Magus Sisters just...

Jesus, Magus Sisters and Anima, what a joke the normal storyline progression becomes with either of them.

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Originally Posted by Ghalith

Something I haven't seen on the forums but thought about for summoner was making Enkindle more usable/viable, possibly at the cost of Fester. This would not only eliminate the WoW Affliction Warlock-vibe a lot of people (including myself) get from the class, and put more emphasis on the pet. This would be a very simple mechanic to alter and I feel like it would make a world of difference in making one feel like a Summoner.

EDIT: Not to imply Enkindle should do more damage necessarily, but reducing the recast time, or maybe making it an Aetherflow ability instead.

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I think this would be a fantastic step in the right direction. Shift numbers around so it doesn't wind up being a DPS buff or nerf, I'm sure that's doable.

I can say I'd feel a LOT more like a summoner then, that's for sure.

Still miss Hellfire. D:

From skimming through most of these post (not a SMN myself) But I have noticed that PLD and BRD are just glorified Gladiators and Archers.... The real problem is the job system itself. The whole system was poorly designed. There are no real distinctions between the classes and jobs at all. You get 5 new skills and some AF armor. Whoopie. It seems they followed the motto if it ain't broke fix it. The job system in FFXI was not that broken... Leveling sucked for sure but the job system was IMO very good. Why change it for the worse...