SMN 5.0 Wishlist

How likely is it that they'll increase Aetherflow stack from 3 to 4/5 in Shadowbringers? Would this even make sense?

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Originally Posted by Seraphyel

How likely is it that they'll increase Aetherflow stack from 3 to 4/5 in Shadowbringers? Would this even make sense?

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Yes and no. They would need to rework the rotation accordingly. The idea of having 3 stacks now is that it cuts your overall rotation is sub-rotations. One for aetherflow, one for DWT, one for Bahamut...
I'm expecting some upgrade of DoTs, Ruin 5, and maybe one or two new oGCD skills. The flow of the current rotation is ok, it does not need a big overhaul.

But if shadowbringers is revamping gauges, SMN could change a lot because it has three (Aetherpool, DWT and Bahamut).

I just wish they would make a system that implements more summons, Like what a summoner should be doing.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

I don't really like the idea of one button doing multiple things too much.

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It's not too much. It's one cooldown that replaces a bunch of cooldowns you're already familiar with, that all effectively do the same thing: Buff your damage for 16-20s. The only one of them that's different is Bahamut, and he's still specifically called out by Dreadwyrm Aether charges. SE specifically stated that they wanted to eliminate a bunch of useless buttons in order to make playing this game easier going into Stormblood, and they still need to do that for 5.0 to make room for more abilities. Shifting all of these extraneous buttons that don't really do much to the rotation as a whole is the ultimate solution to that.

If you want an analogue to how this would play out, look at Dragoon. Life of the Dragon and Mirage Dive is extremely similar to how this would operate in practice.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

I didn't really play SMN during HW because it was either too punishing or had too long of a down-time. I hated Aethertrails having a time-lock to them and burning Aetherflow during Dreadwyrm Trance that lead to that down-time I really disliked.

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HW SMN had about 25s of downtime if you ignore planning around their last Aetherflow stack in the middle of their 1 minute rotation. 15-20s was dedicated to refreshing DoTs and preparing cooldowns for DWT in a specific order and where some of that happened was based on whether you had Ifrit or Garuda out, but a consistent dividing point was Shadowflare. 15s was dedicated to DWT itself. That filler consisted of picking between Ruin I/II/III based on how much MP you had (or were going to have, based on when your BRD/MCH used their MP restoration skills), and how much movement you had to do for the encounter. The only problems that weren't addressed properly in the changes done throughout early Stormblood were the fact that the resource gating on Ruin III was tied to MP instead of some secondary resource, and that Aethertrail didn't need a timer. That's it. The Lockouts weren't necessary at all, and Ruin III could have been addressed if SE had taken the appropriate time to do so instead of letting Lucid Dreaming slip through unchecked.

I've gone over the other pertinent points already, but the problems with SMN right now mainly focus on the fact that they're only using Ruin II for cooldown weaving and otherwise default to Ruin III for 90% of their GCDs. They simply don't have another option unless AoE is involved. Their cooldown management is not particularly interesting either as SE explicitly makes it impossible to stack them in a meaningful manner. Every change I've ever talked about regarding SMN was made with the intent of consolidating their cooldowns into a more interesting burst window that takes up less space on their keybinds, allowing them to focus giving room for SE to build more into their rotation (hopefully their GCDs, to deal with the 'one-button' feel of their rotation) in order to differentiate them from BRD and actually get their pets involved.

With that in mind:

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

It doesn't kill the Tri-Diaster mechanic as it'd still provide the aforementioned buffs (Ruination and current Contagion)

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I don't want to use Bio/Miasma III sparingly because of what I talked about above. Tri-disaster's value goes down, sure, but so does the value of that single DoT on a single target rotation. The goal here is to cut into the constant Ruin II/III spam. Why have a DoT all when you could simply rework Tri-disaster to be a 30s oGCD that replaces it entirely? Or vice versa? That's why I would rather remove the reset mechanic and keep the two DoTs, it cuts into our filler, and acts as a bridge between whatever SE wants us to do in that 30s next expansion and the consolidated DWT I mentioned before.


The GCD issue aside:
1) Tri-Disaster's Reset mechanic cannot be allowed to co-exist with Contagion unless you see it nerfed down to compensate. BLM exploits this too well. Think Piercing and Bard. Same problem.
2) Ruination and Contagion basically do the same thing already. Contagion just applies to a wider variety of things in addition to Ruin spells. There's little need for Ruination at all to be honest. It would be better to remove Ruination entirely, which leaves a debuff spot open for something else, like the other DoT.
3) Bane loses almost all of its value as multi-dotting has become significantly easier with no real AoE filler to compensate for it outside of DWT, which is already constrained by needing to spend all of your aetherflow in order to access it thanks to the lockouts. At this point Bane really is a GCD efficiency tool and you're cutting that value in half with this change.
4) Tri-Disaster and its reset mechanic make up 75% of our DoT usage in most boss situations. Having to DoT at all should have more of a GCD cost.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

The reason I didn't go the route of suggesting what you have is because we have enough physical buffs or invuls down, but hardly any magic ones.

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Physical buffs are problematic because they exclude casters and healers. Magic buffs are similarly problematic for excluding all other DPS and tanks. It's a bad idea to only have one of these kinds of buffs in isolation. For MNK and RDM I'd rather they were universal bonuses because adding a similar magic equivalent just doesn't fit either of them well at all. The reason I disagree with it being a problem on SMN is because you get the option to pick between the two as a balancing point. SMN is tailor made to have that kind of split without it being a detriment since both effects can exist in similar places (pets) or in the same place as with my change. I'm just moving their utility to a single button instead of two seperate ones, ensuring it's mutually exclusive between the two (Pet Swap openers just add needless clutter imo). The only reason I mentioned a TA equivalent for Bahamut is because it's Bahamut. By putting him on an effective 180s CD he lines up with every other raid buff appropriately. I'd balance all three to give similar relative contributions, with Bahamut's Vul Up being the weakest while Garuda's would be the strongest with Ifrit somewhere in the middle, based on how each one operates. This makes Bahamut weaker (a good thing given how much of our total DPS he's truly worth at the moment), but better raid DPS (almost every single raid buff will always line up with it explicitly, only Chain/Embolden and maybe cards don't) while being less frustrating to use.

Also to me the reason the 'meta' is stale is because we don't have enough weight or depth when it comes to personal cooldown management and thus raid buffs matter too much as a result. Personal skill gaps need to be widened a bit and freeing up when to use stuff like TA needs to happen sooner or later. Bringing back some of the old DWT helps with this. Something I'd love to see is cooldown charges to help you keep stuff ticking down so you can save up for a larger, extended burst window. This is similar to how Foul operates, sort of. GCD-focused classes would need something to compete with this as well but they could use more on that front regardless, so whatever's added to them simply would need to be stronger.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

I understand that. This works outside of statics or other content that don't have locks on them that are generally easily downed in PFs or DF. My suggestion was more along the lines of allowing more choice of EGI even inside content that have lock-outs, like savage raids.

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Titan is for solo content. He doesn't need a purpose in raids. He needs to function better at his intended role, which requires specific changes to him and SMN as a whole to support him. He doesn't need to exist in Savage. The last time he did exist in similar content (Coil/Ramuh Ex) SE made it so tank cleaves obliterated pets specifically because he took no damage at all otherwise. SE does not want to support a DPS that can sometimes become a janky Tank hybrid. And we don't need the extra party mitigation when Role Actions cover that area already. We can do without.

Provoke immune mobs generally ignore aggro to begin with, because Provoke isn't a status, it sets your aggro to the top player's aggro +1. And the way I worded it specifically dealt with that issue. Setting Titan's Aggro to the SMN's Aggro + the aggro generated by Mountain Buster means they'll never exceed the tanks provided the SMN is doing their job correctly anyways, but you wouldn't use Titan in the first place nowadays. There are tank mechanics that always default to a player. I believe second coil had a few specifically to keep Titan Egi out of there, but I know HW was full of them if you tried unsyncing content, and would generally wreck players without a shield of some sort.

I'm also not worried about having to use Sustain every 3-4 GCDs in solo content. In practice it's not even close to that if you're using Titan properly in the first place. Something needs to break up the Ruin III spam currently anyways so it might as well be an ability that keeps the pet alive and lets you single weave.

Look up T13 solos. It's been done before. I'm sure SMN could absolutely solo HW content too if not for their lack of self-healing.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

I'd missed Festers and Shadow Flares in oGCD slots because of latency. It's annoying. Not to mention while using a macro on something like Shadow Flare, it reduces the range that you can place it down.

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I have too, usually due to my own mistakes though. That isn't really enough of a reason to justify not using a macro for Shadowflare to me. Trying to manually place it in a mess like Forsaken phases in Kefka or during Hello World is not worth the effort. I use a macro and a regular button for it, defaulting to the former except when I know what I'm targetting is being moved, so I can place it where it needs to be ahead of time. The only time it's even remotely close to a problem is in 24 man content and if you're that far from the boss you're out of range of your healers meaning you're also not stacked with the party for most of the mechanics that matter in there. It's on SE to fix it properly but the real mistake is not using the tool they've given us in the meantime.

For reference, the macro range is basically the same as the Foe Requiem range too. Foes is supposed to be the same range as your normal attacks but is only slightly smaller. You won't notice the difference unless you're specifically looking for it.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Honestly, considering Bahamut isn't targetable, why don't they just increase his range to something ridiculous and just not have him move?...Don't know why Ifrit would be running around...Yeah, I've had him on small for ages. He's wingspan still gets in the way sometimes and is just annoying.

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Bahamut's ranges are already 4x that of your own spells (aside from Resurrection). The problem literally is just the fact he wants to chase you. That could be solved by making him auto attack instead of waiting on your input. Or rescripting him and the Egi to only move once the have to make an attack that's out of range. The Egi have this problem too, that's why they follow you once the boss disappears if you haven't used a place command. Their autospell AI holds them in place until they lose a target. That's how Bahamut should operate, just without needing the auto-spell portion to hold him in place. He should sit still and wait for his next command, then move if he lacks line of sight or range somehow. If SE literally copy-pasted Bahamut's code onto the egi, then Ifrit would run back and forth between the mob and you as I described. That's why I disagree with changing them until they nail Bahamut specifically. Once that's addressed, then the Egi can inherit those changes at a later date.

This change would also address your camera issue as well, somewhat. He already plops down near the SMN though. Any further away and he'd be running automatically to you immediately. I'd recommend you zoom out and play with your camera settings, even the angle can help out here. It helps you see more of the encounter anyways. The only time to be zoomed in as close as the melee DPS are to the boss is for /gpose anyways. It's not worth the overhead until you know the encounter by heart.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

I'd prefer they'd not add it to Energy Drain as that's taking a DPS loss to heal your pet, which is no different than keeping a GCD-Sustain. I'm also not in favor of "making Physick decent" as that's a pretty vague statement. Why does Physick need to be better on SMN?

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You misunderstood me here. Energy Drain would apply Sustain to your current pet in addition to its normal effects. You don't have to target them at all for it, just use it on an enemy and get your Pet Regen alongside your HP/MP and damage as normal.

For making Physick decent all you have to do is make it scale on Attack Magic Potency like Vercure does for RDM. It has no bearing on SCH because their Attack Magic Potency scales on MND just like their Healing Magic Potency does. The two stats are literally equal for SCH. So it's purely a buff to SMN, and that's it.

I've made use of the weak Physick before, but the last time I got to that wasn't padding 99% healing parses on SMN throughout the last two Savage tiers to the utter amusement of my healers, it was me using it to just barely squeak by taking two orbs in A4Normal when that was new content and healers weren't reacting quickly enough to them.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

While I wouldn't be against having manaward added to role, or some other protection spell, I also don't see the point of it.

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There are HP checks in this game that outright kill a caster DPS or healer without full vit melds until you have full left-side gear for that raid tier. A personal shield or mitigation cooldown would address these issues for all caster DPS without having the raid bend around it. It's not good enough to be mobile if you're getting oneshot. And the lack of an oGCD personal defensive cooldown only applies to SMN and RDM specifically. The lack of a useful personal raid defensive tool is unique to SMN at the moment too. RDM can cure themselves on back to back hits if they absolutely have to. BLM will eat the clipping for the same reasons. SMN either uses Drain for minimal value or straight up dies in those situations.

BLM doesn't use Manaward to soak random AoEs either. It's not worth it compared to mitigating something that actually kills them when it comes up. If it costs a healer GCD or cooldown they're better off moving in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

There are HP checks in this game that outright kill a caster DPS or healer without full vit melds until you have full left-side gear for that raid tier. A personal shield or mitigation cooldown would address these issues for all caster DPS without having the raid bend around it. It's not good enough to be mobile if you're getting oneshot. And the lack of an oGCD personal defensive cooldown only applies to SMN and RDM specifically. The lack of a useful personal raid defensive tool is unique to SMN at the moment too. RDM can cure themselves on back to back hits if they absolutely have to. BLM will eat the clipping for the same reasons. SMN either uses Drain for minimal value or straight up dies in those situations.

BLM doesn't use Manaward to soak random AoEs either. It's not worth it compared to mitigating something that actually kills them when it comes up. If it costs a healer GCD or cooldown they're better off moving in the first place.

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This is by far really annoying lol, early Omega progs and clears. I would always die right before panto 2 becuase of the damn fire, metoer, dot combo bs. Sometimes it would simply be from not enough HP to survive stuff and healers having to move as well causing them to have to focus casters....Any Savage with a heavy dot I just know I'm going to die.

Ion Efflux was another early on, it would literally one shot me becuase I hate vit melds lol

Dreadwyrn Aether renamed to Trance Aether.

Enigma Trance
Decreases damage received by 10%.
Duration: 16s
Additional Effect: Resets Tri-disaster recast timer
Additional Effect: Removes the Bind effect of Tri-bind, increases its potency by 40, and reduces MP cost
Additional Effect: Removes cast time of Ruin III
Increases Trance Gauge when effect ends
Can only be executed when Aethertrail Attunement stack is 3 and Demi-Bahamut or Demi-Alexander are not summoned.
Aethertrail Attunement is achieved upon executing an Aetherflow action.
Cannot execute Aetherflow while under the effect of Enigma Trance.

Summon Alexander
Summons Demi-Alexander to fight by your side. Each time you use an action on a target, Demi-Alexander will execute Enigma Screen on a random party member.
Duration: 20s
Trance Aether Cost: 2
Cannot summon Demi-Alexander unless a pet is already summoned. Current pet will leave the battlefield while Demi-Alexander is present, and return once gone. Cannot use while under the effect of Dreadwyrm Trance or Enigma Trance.

Enigma Screen
Erects a barrier around target negating 30% of damage received and reflecting 30% of the damage back to the attacker for the next three incoming attacks, with the effect reduced by 10% for each attack received. Applies to most attacks. (doesn’t apply to whole-arena boss attacks)
Will only execute while Demi-Alexander is summoned.
(Function is similar to RDM’s Embolden, it bestows 3 stacks of Enigma Screen. 3 Stacks = 30% reflect, 2 Stacks = 20% reflect, 1 Stack = 10% reflect. Each attack received consumes a stack.)

Enkindle: Orders pet to use their Signature attack. Orders Demi-Bahamut to execute Akh Morn. Orders Demi-Alexander to execute Sacrement. (consolidated skill)

Sacrement
Deals unaspected damage to a target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 560 for the first enemy, 10% less for the second, 20% less for the third, 30% less for the fourth, 40% less for the fifth, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Additional Effect: Consumes any existing Enigma Screens for additional effects: 1 Screen = +40 potency and Stun, 2 Screens = +80 potency and Stun and Silence, 3+ Screens = +120 potency and Stun, Silence, Heavy and Bind
Can only be executed while Demi-Alexander is summoned.

Basically, Alexander is a version of Bahamut tailored to trash mobs and defensive utility, while Enigma Trance would be your 'Manaward'.
This would be two new buttons (Trance and Summon) and one button reduction in consolidating Enkindle and Enkindle Bahamut into one.

So wild for me to see these bigger egi being accepted by majority posts... Back in my day *ptsdwardog.gif* people fought so hard against the idea when I was asking for bigger better looking egi. It's a nice change lol. I like the changes SE has made, and am very excited to see new content to them - of course "more demi/upgrade mah egis" thoughts happen but overall am happy with and excited to see new content on SMN these days (years lol).

Would love to see a greater focus on the pets, although they need to respond a bit snappier then :3. Perhaps a way to do that without changing SMN too much is to see either casting spells through the empowered egi or in theme of them (Titan is out, Bane is now a sand plume).

Some random thoughts:

• When your pet is out the summon spell for their type is changed to sustain, remove sustain as a skill on it's own (new slot for something else). So if you have potato out, potato summon is now sustain.
• Pets can phase out, no longer being target-able like Bahamut-demi (cannot tank for you as a consequence, also can't die). Enmity is dumped and a fraction of the future enmity will be put onto the caster. They may phase back in of course, perhaps add this as a skill on the pet's own hotbar with a light cooldown. You shouldn't need to manage it too often but I believe it could help design the job around pets more, and let SE make a SMN focus more on other actions than keeping them alive (let the beastmaster concern themselves with that lol).
• Now that you don't have to worry about your pets dying in dungeons/raids, while a pet is active most of your attack spells now act as spells through or at least themed around the egi. Ifrit egi out, bio is enhanced with flames. Majority of damage spells will be re-themed to general primal that's summoned, thankfully because of the primal fights in game there are a lot of effects for SE to reuse rather than having to develop from scratch.
• New demi-egi system that upgrades them, either permanently, through rouse/spur, or another new mechanic I don't care but I'd like to look at the current egi less and less and something demi or demi like more and more :).

Back when I was asking (badgering? lol <3) for a more grandiose summoner (pre-ahk morn/bahamut) I had described being able to summon larger egi via empowering a mechanic that was a bit like a battery.. I realize that pretty much happened already but a concept of that didn't make it through that I was sort of fond of was that as you power up you lightly fill the air with pyre flies (FFX spirit energy). Just want to toss that spell effect idea out there again, for anything really lol. Upgrading non-bahamut egi, new spell (recharges something or acts as a sort of hellzone gernade?), empowered form (like dragoon), etc.

I thought of a cool ability that would work similar to surecast. Aetharal Summon would basically turn a DoT based attack into a Demi-Summon causing all the damage the DoT would do into one attack, like the Thunder proc.

Shadow Flare would become Diabolos
Bio would become Siren
Miasma would become Fenrir.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

I thought of a cool ability that would work similar to surecast. Aetharal Summon would basically turn a DoT based attack into a Demi-Summon causing all the damage the DoT would do into one attack, like the Thunder proc.

Shadow Flare would become Diabolos
Bio would become Siren
Miasma would become Fenrir.

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What if all three were active? It'd generate all three 'Demis' at once.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

What if all three were active? It'd generate all three 'Demis' at once.

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Well no, it would be the next spell you cast, not what DoTs is currently on the mob.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Well no, it would be the next spell you cast, not what DoTs is currently on the mob.

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You mean, reapplying Bio would trigger this Demi-Siren and consolodate the DoT?

Not really unique suggestion but more other game reference news, in ESO the necromancer has a summon skill that is a burst attack: https://youtu.be/yf1TgZLDMbQ?t=74

Like Bahamut's Ahk Morn attack but more body :D, I think Yuna Dissida has a few attacks like that. But I know the suggestion isn't new, I've seen it before and I have made it before lol.

Just thought it's an opportunity to mention it again and they can look cool :)

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

You mean, reapplying Bio would trigger this Demi-Siren and consolodate the DoT?

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I think what they meant was that:
A) Surecast causes the next spell to be cast without interruption. This example could therefore be replaced with fast cast, it's the next spell within a set duration get's this new effect (and then the buff is consumed).
B) Black Mage's lightning proc causes all of the damage over 18 seconds to be added into it's initial damage (the dot itself also still applies)

So back to Dyvid's idea we with A + B have an ability that causes only the next DoT based ability to turn into a primal related spell visually, causing an additional burst of damage from the total of DoT damage (like black mage thunder), and you have to wait till you can do that again as the primal ability is now on cooldown (you can't activate all three at once, only one, but you can still cast the DoT spells like normal just like you can cast a spell without fast cast/surecast).

Seems like it could fit into the summoner kit, and potential to look cool - so I like that :D. Would want to make sure the skill is used in combination with the other abilities (its not "only use primal summoning with bio, never miasma") but I'm sure that could be worked out.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I think what they meant was that:
A) Surecast causes the next spell to be cast without interruption. This example could therefore be replaced with fast cast, it's the next spell within a set duration get's this new effect (and then the buff is consumed).
B) Black Mage's lightning proc causes all of the damage over 18 seconds to be added into it's initial damage (the dot itself also still applies)

So back to Dyvid's idea we with A + B have an ability that causes only the next DoT based ability to turn into a primal related spell visually, causing an additional burst of damage from the total of DoT damage (like black mage thunder), and you have to wait till you can do that again as the primal ability is now on cooldown (you can't activate all three at once, only one, but you can still cast the DoT spells like normal just like you can cast a spell without fast cast/surecast).

Seems like it could fit into the summoner kit, and potential to look cool - so I like that :D. Would want to make sure the skill is used in combination with the other abilities (its not "only use primal summoning with bio, never miasma") but I'm sure that could be worked out.

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I think he meant Sharpcast, which procs Thundercloud if you use Thunder, which fits his description of bursting with compiled damage of any DoT :)
While I get the general idea, I think it makes it even weirder to have SMN use DoTs instead of Primal moves. Then ShadowFlare is not interesting enough because it does poor damage compared to Bio and Miasma.

We could maybe embrace the weirdness of the DoT mage saying we use Primal ether whatever to strengthen our actions, that's essentially how Tri-Desaster works but you'd need to make it a bit more primal-flavored.
So in that sense, we could have a new ability that would be essentially channeling primal power into our next GCD spell, have a flashy animation and an added effect. Something along the lines of Potency increase on Ruin or Tri-bind, double duration on DoTs...
But that's another button, and that's a problem somehow.

The problem with SMN now is that its rotation is so fixed on its current flow that you need to either completely rework it to fit new ideas or just paste another mechanic on the existing model (what Seraphor did with his Alexander for instance).
Because currently, touching DoTs duration messes up with the flow of sub 30seconds phases in the rotation (I'm heavily relying on Tsundere Imouto's guide here). Powering up DoTs messes up with the Contagion window aligned with the three Festers... you get the idea.

Personally, I like SMN right now so I'm ok with 5.0 taking SMN more in button consolidation, polishing its small flaws and upgrading a few things. But a brand new rotation could work too (just like it could be horrible).

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Originally Posted by Mansion

I think he meant Sharpcast, which procs Thundercloud if you use Thunder, which fits his description of bursting with compiled damage of any DoT :)
While I get the general idea, I think it makes it even weirder to have SMN use DoTs instead of Primal moves. Then ShadowFlare is not interesting enough because it does poor damage compared to Bio and Miasma.

We could maybe embrace the weirdness of the DoT mage saying we use Primal ether whatever to strengthen our actions, that's essentially how Tri-Desaster works but you'd need to make it a bit more primal-flavored.
So in that sense, we could have a new ability that would be essentially channeling primal power into our next GCD spell, have a flashy animation and an added effect. Something along the lines of Potency increase on Ruin or Tri-bind, double duration on DoTs...
But that's another button, and that's a problem somehow.

The problem with SMN now is that its rotation is so fixed on its current flow that you need to either completely rework it to fit new ideas or just paste another mechanic on the existing model (what Seraphor did with his Alexander for instance).
Because currently, touching DoTs duration messes up with the flow of sub 30seconds phases in the rotation (I'm heavily relying on Tsundere Imouto's guide here). Powering up DoTs messes up with the Contagion window aligned with the three Festers... you get the idea.

Personally, I like SMN right now so I'm ok with 5.0 taking SMN more in button consolidation, polishing its small flaws and upgrading a few things. But a brand new rotation could work too (just like it could be horrible).

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SMN's a job that's had growing pains in every expansion('member when they removed Sustain?), so I won't be surprised if that trend continues in ShB. That said, something like Demi-Pandaemonium(Miasma is centered on the target's lungs, first semi-related summon I thought of) that interacts with DoTs would be neat despite potentially requiring big rotational changes.

Honestly, the only thing on my wishlist is for them to completely rework Summoner so that it feels like a Summoner. Make it summon Demi-Primals and have the bulk of their kit be about empowering the summons and building up to stronger and stronger summons.

Take Tri-Disaster, Bio III, Miasma III and Fester and give it all to Scholar, let them be the DoT mage. Make Summoners Summoners again!

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Originally Posted by Rollout

Honestly, the only thing on my wishlist is for them to completely rework Summoner so that it feels like a Summoner. Make it summon Demi-Primals and have the bulk of their kit be about empowering the summons and building up to stronger and stronger summons.

Take Tri-Disaster, Bio III, Miasma III and Fester and give it all to Scholar, let them be the DoT mage. Make Summoners Summoners again!

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Summoner wouldn't be Summoner without Arcanist. If you want flashy explosive spells play BLM because that's literally what every iteration of SMN other than XI was, and XI SMN wasn't even good because it attempted to emulate what you're after and did so badly. If you want distinctive phases play BRD.

What makes Summoner actually properly realize its theme in this game is the fact it is an Arcanist. It has incremental spikes of power and a myriad of ways to sustain damage in conjunction with its pet. All it's missing is pet synergy that specifically makes you interact with the Egis. That's it.

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Originally Posted by Rollout

Honestly, the only thing on my wishlist is for them to completely rework Summoner so that it feels like a Summoner. Make it summon Demi-Primals and have the bulk of their kit be about empowering the summons and building up to stronger and stronger summons.

Take Tri-Disaster, Bio III, Miasma III and Fester and give it all to Scholar, let them be the DoT mage. Make Summoners Summoners again!

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Problem is everyone has their own idea on what summoner is suppose to be, not what it is.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I think what they meant was that:
A) Surecast causes the next spell to be cast without interruption. This example could therefore be replaced with fast cast, it's the next spell within a set duration get's this new effect (and then the buff is consumed).
B) Black Mage's lightning proc causes all of the damage over 18 seconds to be added into it's initial damage (the dot itself also still applies)

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Originally Posted by Mansion

I think he meant Sharpcast, which procs Thundercloud if you use Thunder, which fits his description of bursting with compiled damage of any DoT :).

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Thanks, it was sharpcast. Anyway it just gives SMN a option for a burst dps in the middle of rotation or when you know it's about to jump phase. And it gives players who want a more summons another option. As for Fenrir, Diabolos, and Siren, these are traditional Summoner but not primals in this game. Mainly for fan service.

As long as they bring back something resembling the DPS style of HW SMN - even if that class isn't SMN - I'm good. It won't happen though. I didn't play this class this expansion, so I suspect at this point, people are generally happy with how it turned out and want more Bahamut shenanigans.

EDIT: I replied without seeing the last page. I'm in the (likely) minority of people who preferred when a huge portion of SMN's damage was dots. I want that back. But I realize most people don't. I would sacrifice Bahamut to have good Bane back.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brinzy

As long as they bring back something resembling the DPS style of HW SMN - even if that class isn't SMN - I'm good. It won't happen though. I didn't play this class this expansion, so I suspect at this point, people are generally happy with how it turned out and want more Bahamut shenanigans.

EDIT: I replied without seeing the last page. I'm in the (likely) minority of people who preferred when a huge portion of SMN's damage was dots. I want that back. But I realize most people don't. I would sacrifice Bahamut to have good Bane back.

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Honestly if people want pets people are going to get Damage over Time whether they realize it or not. It just scales with spell speed slightly better if the pets proc directly off of SMN's casts. Splitting your damage between you and your pet already leans in that direction. And trust me, Arcanist is wholly entrenched in Summoner. SE can't rework the job from the ground up without screwing up everything they've built into their main lore and mechanics.

They can do an egi rework, They can't eliminate Garuda/Ifrit/Titan or the Carbuncles.
They can rework Bahamut's mechanics, but Dreadwyrm Trance has to stay.
DoTs are part of Arcanist's job quests, so Miasma/Bio and Tri-Disaster aren't going anywhere.
Aetherflow is part of Arcanist's theme. Summoner utilizes it to its full offensive potential.

Bane could be good again but I don't think it has to be if they made Pet AoE good enough that you'd get a similar flurry of debuffs and damage text flying out.

I don't expect anything to change, but consolidating what we have by returning in essence to the HW rotation allows SE to accomplish what people want out of the job using the 70-80 job abilities, which is more egi related effects.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

Honestly if people want pets people are going to get Damage over Time whether they realize it or not. It just scales with spell speed slightly better if the pets proc directly off of SMN's casts. Splitting your damage between you and your pet already leans in that direction. And trust me, Arcanist is wholly entrenched in Summoner. SE can't rework the job from the ground up without screwing up everything they've built into their main lore and mechanics.

They can do an egi rework, They can't eliminate Garuda/Ifrit/Titan or the Carbuncles.
They can rework Bahamut's mechanics, but Dreadwyrm Trance has to stay.
DoTs are part of Arcanist's job quests, so Miasma/Bio and Tri-Disaster aren't going anywhere.
Aetherflow is part of Arcanist's theme. Summoner utilizes it to its full offensive potential.

Bane could be good again but I don't think it has to be if they made Pet AoE good enough that you'd get a similar flurry of debuffs and damage text flying out.

I don't expect anything to change, but consolidating what we have by returning in essence to the HW rotation allows SE to accomplish what people want out of the job using the 70-80 job abilities, which is more egi related effects.

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I agree with alot of your points to include removal of Egi would be problematic as well as removal of DoTs, though it could happen to make SMN more inline with SE's concept of Caster DPS "Magical ranged DPS attack foes using a variety of arcane arts. Movement is restricted by casting times, but they excel at inflicting high burst damage." I do think they might/hope rework DWT to make it more in tune with Pet summoning concept. I've always hate DWT and said it should have been a temp pet from the very beginning; why couldn't they have just added a timed Bahamut Egi pet like WoW's Infernal and get the same result? I would rather have Bahamut than Bahamut's breath. DWT could easily be changed to upgrading the current Egi and replace Deathflare with Enkindle.

I mean not all casters are intended to be BLM. SMN and RDM have differing tools and proportions of spells with cast times to ensure they feel different, which is important to ensure good job variety. If you took all that away, you'd have a BLM clone, and BLM already excels at its niche.

I say we get rid of "pets" all together. Make it an animation that is stuck to the caster. So when you summon a pet, it is like a graphical effect you can see that simply indicates a form of stance.

This does not mean make them static though. For example, summoning garuda will place her on your back. She will from there constantly cast her range spell and give you access to her tool kit.

Now take Ifrit. "If you summon him and he is attached to you how will he do damage when he is melee?" You might ask. Well I'm glad you did. The answer is simple. YOU are now melee range caster. You get close and ifrit will auto attack the way you would with your book.

Now for the demi primals idea. I really like this cause it looks way cooler anyways. Let's remove the normal aither flow skills. Now replace them with buffed up versions of each summons skills. 3 aither flows, three summon commands to use cool summon skills. Once you use an aither flow you get primal charge. 3 primal charges lets you enkindle a summon to use its special and transform into a demi primal with the full design of its self just scaled down to size.

Now this is where it gets fun. I think its high time we got 3 new summons of 3 old friends. Once you go into primal stance after enkindling you will work up to stage 2. Using 3 primal either flow charges, you will build up to a summon swap. On a second enkindling, while the summon is in demi-primal form, the primal will then be replaced by a second stage summon.

Garuda=> Ramu
Ifrit=> Shiva
Titan=> Leviathan

Similar skills will be given to these 2nd teir summons with a bit more kick and you repeat the process to get now dreadwyrm charges. And after that back to bahamut and once he is done either full reset or under certain conditions you go back the 1st demi primal.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

I've always hate DWT and said it should have been a temp pet from the very beginning; why couldn't they have just added a timed Bahamut Egi pet like WoW's Infernal and get the same result? I would rather have Bahamut than Bahamut's breath. DWT could easily be changed to upgrading the current Egi and replace Deathflare with Enkindle.

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Summoner's entire quest line and the ludonarrative behind their rotation and mechanical progression is all tied to us all being neophyte Arcanists learning how to be Summoners.

In ARR we started as Arcanists unfamiliar with Allagan Arcanima related to Summoning, but with the scraps of Y'mithra's research, we managed to learn how to summon Primal Egi in the form of Ifrit, then using the aether we slotted out for Carbuncles, we learned to summon Titan and Garuda as well. We capped out by learning Enkindle, hinting that we could do more with them, without a clear direction on how.

In HW we tried continuing our approach in ARR, attempting to learn to summoning multiple different egi from the primals that we had already defeated, which we realized wasn't possible due to us lacking enough enough aether at that point (presumably because we ran out of places to slot them in), but we did have access to Bahamut's essense thanks to the Calamity. So, we began an arduous process to start learning to harness his essence, which manifests in the form of Trance, Painflare, and Deathflare, and doing so even served to augment our Arcanima in the form of Ruin III and Tri-Disaster.

We peaked with finally Summoning Bahamut in Stormblood sure but we couldn't actually bring him out without first proving that we were worthy of the knowledge (via Prin & Sari's trials) and capable of producing the energy necessary to manifest his Demi-form, which is why we continue to keep DWT around now. We finally have achieved proper Summoning technique through learning to control him, and gained more Arcanima knowledge along the way.

What Shadowbringers needs to do now is help us bring it back down to the Egi, by using the implied methodologies we gained from Demi-Bahamut in lore to then refine our Egi further, finally augmenting them into Demi-Egi in order to progress our abilities.

Whether people actually realize that's going on is the bigger issue.

SMN 5.0 Wishlift.

- Ramuh, Shiva and Leviathan egi. Even if just as glam.
- Demi upgrade mode for the egi.
- Alex and Odin glams for Bahamut.
- Absolutely no BRD song rotation gimmick.