Am I doing SMN wrong or is there just a LOT to do?

Maybe some rehashes and possibly unbalanced, but here's a few things I would like to see:

- I think it's odd that they didn't marry Demi-Bahamut to DWT like they did for Demi-Phoenix with FBT. I think that would've flowed better and allowed for better weaving with Demi-Bahamut out, even though that doesn't help WW anymore. To me, this would've given us two burst phases without this weird flow of DWT into Demi-Bahamut into FBT/Demi-Phoenix. It would be less hectic in the middle, too.

- Energy Drain and Energy Siphon feel so pointless. Why not just let Aetherflow stacks build up over time to a max of 4? It would cut back on at least one ogcd.

- Outburst should have no cast time to allow for AoE weaving without clipping. You either clip or you use Ruin 2/4 and it feels bad either way.

- Increase DPS in general or make Devotion a lot stronger.

- I don't have a suggestion for this, but EA 1 and 2 feel bad to use and create so many ogcds that it can easily become overwhelming. I like the idea of being able to set them to be used automatically, but then the pets just become SB pets on Sic.

- Phoenix grants a boost of 1% (or whatever) damage for each party member instead of a Regen. Call it "Life Boost" or something friendly to Phoenix lore.

- Removing Bane from the aetherflow mechanic is awesome, but without any real limit beyond the 10 sec cd it's sort of pointless. Could be a trait instead called Contagion (HA!) that auto spreads dots to nearby targets every 10 seconds instead.

- Make physick useful to smn, or remove it and make it sch exclusive while giving us something else in its place.

Overall, I like smn, but it feels so much worse to play than the other casters. They're gracefully galloping around having a great time while I feel like a newborn giraffe playing smn.

I like it a lot as well but adjustments should indeed be made. Energy drain is not a good idea indeed.
I wish we still had pet appearing in team players' list.
I would like SMN experts to tell me if all the things we do really pay off dps wise in the end.

I realize most people who like the changes aren't going to go on forums to praise it relative to those who will go on to complain, but I actually really like Summoner and how busy it feels. To me, difficulty justifies better damage, so keep it as is, and IF the damage output of Summoner fully optimized isn't what you all feel it should be, suggest buffs to output. I feel like the more they simplify things down, the less justified it is for Summoner to have really great dps relative to other high dps classes.

One change I would welcome though is for Egi Assault 1 & 2 to give Ruin IV immediately rather than on hit. It also would help titan's Egi Assault 1. Also, have pet actions que up. Like, if you spam Egi Assault 1 & 2 and Enkindle, instead of losing one or two of those skills from being done from the pet, have the pet have a que that will attempt to do all those skills til all of them have been done, that way nothing is ever wasted.

I can at least state the following. My husband and I play together on dps smn and rdm. Before the release our damage was comparable to each other. Able to execute various content in an identical timeframe. We both ran the solo Ranjit fight tonight. I was sitting several ilvls higher, popping raid food and still failed the first run through on damage. I was struggling to get the fight done in the required time frame. I ended up sitting on bahamut and phx a long time to wait on the final phase because the if I was stuck in 40 seconds of r3 I would have wiped. I'd practiced the rotation suggestions, I wasn't going in blind with no good ideas on how to run it. I understand there's still a lot to deal with the muscle memory changes and I had to do some rekey work, but overall I've practiced enough that I wasn't completely getting the rotation wrong. There's some failure on the part of having to learn so much in such, but should smn be harder than other classes to execute? I thought we were getting some simplification. Pet AI is janky and with the changes I'm feeling it more. As Nemekh says, we'll learn to adjust. While some parts of summoner feel good, there are parts that definitely feel like I've taken a step back instead of forward.

Yandere, I also don't like the way the assaults read sometimes. A little lag or other problems and your commands are screwed.

@Nova - Well, an improvement to how commands are handled by the pet would help in two fold (three if you count titan egi 1 triggering Ruin 4 which it really should) in that it would stop you from accidentally having your pet waste a skill as well as encourage you to spam pet skills, making it easier to get through all your ocds since you wouldn't have to space out your egi assault anymore like you do now. It would instantly fill your Ruin 4 stacks to max too, which that feels like how it should work really, so you have extra incentive to use your instant spell while you get your other ocds out of the way. Sometimes a small change can make a big difference.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NovaBismarck

I can at least state the following. My husband and I play together on dps smn and rdm. Before the release our damage was comparable to each other. Able to execute various content in an identical timeframe. We both ran the solo Ranjit fight tonight. I was sitting several ilvls higher, popping raid food and still failed the first run through on damage. I was struggling to get the fight done in the required time frame. I ended up sitting on bahamut and phx a long time to wait on the final phase because the if I was stuck in 40 seconds of r3 I would have wiped. I'd practiced the rotation suggestions, I wasn't going in blind with no good ideas on how to run it. I understand there's still a lot to deal with the muscle memory changes and I had to do some rekey work, but overall I've practiced enough that I wasn't completely getting the rotation wrong. There's some failure on the part of having to learn so much in such, but should smn be harder than other classes to execute? I thought we were getting some simplification. Pet AI is janky and with the changes I'm feeling it more. As Nemekh says, we'll learn to adjust. While some parts of summoner feel good, there are parts that definitely feel like I've taken a step back instead of forward.

Yandere, I also don't like the way the assaults read sometimes. A little lag or other problems and your commands are screwed.

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Not to be mean or so, but two things I'd like to point on your post.

- Unless your husband is a killer-excellent RDM, Summoner has outDPS RDM for al stormblood by quite a large advance. If you look at *coughcough*Logs*coughcough*, a high tier RDM will have a lower personalDPS than a SMN at the same high tier, by a good margin.
- the everlasting non-argument of "BuT I cLearEd it EaSy!" Ranjit duty was no problem for me... at all. No food, no pots, and quite a low iLvl (I had a lot of XP from various sources but I didn't rund dungeons so I stuck with my 400 ilvl until I got my AF 80 (don't do that by the way) )

Bonud edit: solo duties are here to teach something. Failing a MSQ duty generally means that your gear is too low, or you don't understand what to do or you don't meet the expected DPS output (can be gear, but most of the time it's about the rotation. Like those countless complain threads of Will of the Moon duty where people had a low-side DPS and could not clear it).

So my take on this, reading your post, would be that there is something wrong in your DPS output. My number one advice would be don't hold the trances. Your flexibility is Bahamut in that kind of duty, but holding a trance means delaying the next one. These are your burst phases (especially Phenix) so you want to milk every occasion to get in trance. DoT uptime, Ruin 4 proc management are the little things to top up / polish the DPS.

I'll agree that 5.0 SMN is a bit "harder", or let's say busier. It's not 30seconds mini phases anymore, the flow has changed to something a bit more active. I personally love it that way... anyway, try identifying your DPS gaps and it should fix the problem :)

same. i went into Ranjit blind as smn, sold most coffer gear in Market and only used dungeon gear if any droped (except the first 2-3 coffer gears, and weapons). So i had not the highest iLVL.
No food or anything. easy fight, oneshot.

Thank you for your thoughts. Yes, I am aware of where rdm sits next to smn. Yes, he is an exceptional rdm. Of that I was already aware. This is the rotation spreadsheet that I have been practicing: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...aring&sle=true

Overall, yes my gear was too low for the fight. I was aware of that going in. I didn't grind multiple dungeons to gear up and I was sitting at a low ilvl, but so was he. I don't mind grinding, but wanted to just try the fight as is. I am not sure how much of the fight flaw was low ilvl vs mistakes made in rotation. I know I did get stuck with R3 phase at the end of the fight and could not make the damage to win, about line 92 in the rotation. It goes back to the original point of the OP, yes there is a lot going on. It was a point that I was trying to ineloquently state.

I'm your standard longtime casual player. I'm a cancer survivor and a handicapped player. I understand my limitations overall. Casual players matter too and someone has to speak up for them. I'm just speaking to my experience to add to the conversation. Overall, I see people who play this game in the high tier smn range who also see some issues with the rotation but I'm waiting to see the numbers and what the pros say before I weigh in too much on what should or should not be done. Then I'll adjust accordingly.

I feel like Egi assault 1 and 2 are a totally unnecessary addition, especially considering how low the potency is.
More buttons doesn't = better and more enjoyable imo.
It pretty quickly ends up feeling bloated and annoying.

A good thing being busy is you don't become a mindless zombie... have you tried mindlessly pressing a few same buttons over and over and over... Well if that's your thing, I have nothing to say.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ksuyen

A good thing being busy is you don't become a mindless zombie... have you tried mindlessly pressing a few same buttons over and over and over... Well if that's your thing, I have nothing to say.

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Just because you have more buttons doesn't mean that it's less brainless really.
I don't think that Egi Assault needs to be two buttons, I like that it gives ruin charges tho.
I think that they could've gotten rid of Fester and have made an Egi attack that used Aether instead if they wanted to go down that road of making us feel like we're using our Egi's more.
Deathflare and Enkindle Bahamut also don't need to be two separate buttons for example.

I only have so many buttons to use that I feel make for comfortable and fluent gameplay, when I run out of them it ends up feeling less smooth and as if my rotation is bloated.
I know that Impact was changed now, but it was like with Jolt 2 and Impact in Stormblood. There's no reason for them to be two separate buttons, Jolt 2 just should've turned into Impact when it proc'd.
The fact that it's two buttons doesn't really make the game feel more involved or deep imo it just means that I'll have to play in a more awkward way.

I admit it is a bit busy for my taste and that is still leveling it to 71. I liked what I heard, read and saw but upon execution just so much going on that I don't have it in me to really commit. Least not right now.

SMN is a lot more active now which is great, but honestly the direction it went isn't the way to do it. There's a lot of things to keep track of than before (and the most out of every job apparently) when imo it already had just enough before. Egi Assaults being the main complaint from most people. The damage for both isn't satisfying either. Yeah it's 30 secs on both, but it still feels bad/underwhelming to use.

There's more buttons than ever, too. Splitting Aetherflow into Energy Drain and Energy Siphon seems like pointless decision-making. Meanwhile Dreadwyrm Trance and Deathflare hasn't been merged into one button yet, nor Summon-Bahamut and Enkindle Bahamut/Phoenix. Having so many mundane buttons makes playing SMN more annoying than it should be. I like most of the changes, but imo the job needs more tweaking.

i like it, but it is a bit overwhelming at first. It gets a lot easier when you get to 80 and have demi-phoenix because it, like Bahamut removes the ability to use Egi Attack. I think the easiest mistake is thinking you need to use all of the egi attacks, you don't. as long as you use 1 stack of them just before bahamut and phoenix, you'll naturally have space to use them after bahamut/ phoenix clears off.

That said the priority system i use is:

Dots
Trances
Energy Drain/Syphon / fester/painflare
Bahamut
Enkindle
Devotion
Egi Attack 1
Egi Attack 2

You don't need to blow your first DWT, nor summon Bahamut immediately. I Often finds its better to delay Bahamut, as long as he is summoned at 25-20 secs remaining on the trance cooldown, you shouldn't clip into trance.

Other than that it's just about keeping the flow going, which is strangely quite refreshing despite how busy it is. I've found its got a lot easier the more times i've tried it. (Wiping on Titania ex helped a lot in this regard)

OH - i also keep an egi Attack 1 in reserve for that sweet emergency Titan shield :) its useful for those stacks people forget to stand in :^)

Either way, i loved the 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 Summoners and i also love the 5.0 one :)

Yes it's definitely more busy but that's actually what i like about it. I've long looked for a job to play that isn't boring me after 30 min at the start of ShB and SMN was the one, while i absolutely hated SB SMN. I feel like i've actually something to do and there's like 3 layers of rotation rather than one for others jobs.

Still at lvl 77 right now but what i'mdoing right now is :

1st layer: tri-disaster, energy drain (or the aoe one), dreadwyrm trance+devotion, use egi assault coupled with insta ruin IV and eventually insert some fester/painflare, blow dreadwyrm trance at 1-2s left
By that time you have energy drain cd ready and stacks of insta ruin.
2nd layer: Summon bahamut and akh morn, tri disater, energy drain, use a stack of ruin, fester, use stack of ruin and possibly another one, second akh morn, fester/painflare, use last stack of ruin, then proceed to ruin II spamming until bahamut goes away
You then have some time before phoenix trance is up so i'm using it to reapply dots, energy drain and replenish stacks of ruin (using egi assaults) .
3rd layer: phoenix trance+ devotion, fountain of fire, fester/painflare, brand of purgatory, and repeat it until the time's up (while inserting some energy drain at some point instead of fester cause no more stack of aetherflow)

That's how i'm doing it for now, i don't know if it'll help you OP, but it can tell the reason why i like SMN now. It's because i feel i'm always doing something different thanks to those three layers and it's very nice to not be spamming something endlessly or repeat the same the same 4-5 button the same way everytime :)

Kyohei, if you want busy jobs that feel good, play Machinist, Dancer, or Bard. All 3 of those jobs are designed, top down, to have busy rotations. Having a rotation on par with those 3 on a caster DPS is not good design, it does not flow well, and it's certainly on the wrong class because Red Mage actually has the tools to deal with being busy.

The class was massively embusied between SB and ShB, and while it's fine to change classes, you don't take a low-moderate busy class and throw it to the far end of the spectrum making it the busiest class in the game, that's just bad game design to begin with. And if you are going to do a change like this, which the devs have done before with Black Mage, then the class needs to flow and feel good with the new rotation, which SMN does not. It does not flow, and it does not feel good, regardless of how busy it is.

So if you seriously want a busy DPS rotation, play Bard, Machinist, or Dancer, they are vastly better designed busy rotations, with Bard being the most consistently busy closest to SMN's current playstyle, and it feels a lot better because every attack is instant and it can do its full rotation while moving without penalty if you're good enough.

Smn is a bit too chaotic at the moment, and certain abilities such as dread wrym trance aren't obvious when they are available to use. There's just no rhythm or flow to it unlike some of the newer jobs. Man I miss the Heavensward summoner.

Summoner is painful to play at this point, and a chore. When I clear this.... Whatever dungeon, the Grisytla Gray Chasm or whatever, and unlock ShB content I will be changing to BLM.

SMN was fine in ARR and HW, but has consistently sucked since.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kyohei

Yes it's definitely more busy but that's actually what i like about it. I've long looked for a job to play that isn't boring me after 30 min at the start of ShB and SMN was the one, while i absolutely hated SB SMN. I feel like i've actually something to do and there's like 3 layers of rotation rather than one for others jobs.

Still at lvl 77 right now but what i'mdoing right now is :

1st layer: tri-disaster, energy drain (or the aoe one), dreadwyrm trance+devotion, use egi assault coupled with insta ruin IV and eventually insert some fester/painflare, blow dreadwyrm trance at 1-2s left
By that time you have energy drain cd ready and stacks of insta ruin.
2nd layer: Summon bahamut and akh morn, tri disater, energy drain, use a stack of ruin, fester, use stack of ruin and possibly another one, second akh morn, fester/painflare, use last stack of ruin, then proceed to ruin II spamming until bahamut goes away
You then have some time before phoenix trance is up so i'm using it to reapply dots, energy drain and replenish stacks of ruin (using egi assaults) .
3rd layer: phoenix trance+ devotion, fountain of fire, fester/painflare, brand of purgatory, and repeat it until the time's up (while inserting some energy drain at some point instead of fester cause no more stack of aetherflow)

That's how i'm doing it for now, i don't know if it'll help you OP, but it can tell the reason why i like SMN now. It's because i feel i'm always doing something different thanks to those three layers and it's very nice to not be spamming something endlessly or repeat the same the same 4-5 button the same way everytime :)

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This is exactly how I feel about the job. Also I have a similiar setup of 3 layers:

Layer 1. Dreadwyrm Phase

Layer 2. Bahamut Phase

Layer 3. Phoenix Phase

And in between wave in Egi Assaults, Devotion, Ruin 4. It's busy but not muddle. It has very clear phases that you can follow through.

SMN is busy and a lot of fun, but the design certainly seems to run towards "weave abilities constantly, all the time", because that's in effect what you do. Practically every cast has an additional ability with cooldown to weave, and you're almost always doing it. That's certainly fun, but it's a whole lot to keep track of given the variant cooldown timers, and while you don't really notice after you've been practicing for a while, the second you switch to something like RDM and get the same results with much less effort it does kind of strike you.

But I am a firm proponent that not every class should play the same (RIP healers), and SMN definitely appeals to those who want an active, busier playstyle with their fingers dancing across the keyboard. For those wanting a simpler, more relaxed time, then that's what RDM is for.

busy class, a LOT of "random" weaves, being punished for weaves with lower potency, great loss of mobility, 5s DOT precast requirement before we can even attack (very useful on DPS check add phases), unweaveable AOEs (fits the rest just great) and bugging pet.

How did they manage to damage a reasonable well working class in so many ways? Are they just proving the theory about thousand monkeys randomly generating class changes for a thousand years... ?

Yeah I've actually started diving into EXes and omg it's everything I feared and worse.
No flexibility.
Less mobility.
Too many timers.
Weaving inertia, that forces me to weave so that I can weave so that I can weave.

My whole mindspace is glued to "never not have ruin IV, focus on farting out EAs so I can ruin IV into more EAs into more ruin IVs. Oh hey aetherflow. Oh hey, DWT, oh hey demibahamut/FBT I finally get a GD break... ... BACK TO SETTING UP MORE RUIN IV, CRAP I have to be mobile, guess I'll waste ruin IV"

For half my two minute rotation I'm furiously clapping my hands at my egi so I don't have to weave ruin II. If I have to move I'm punished hard for it and all that set up is blown away.
No longer is demi-egi phase a reward for setting up my resources just right and going all out on a satisfying burst phase, now it's just a break from having to worry about not dooming myself with a wasted ruin freaking IV. (just kidding! Bahamut is now turret mode so I have to waste a ruin IV if I need to move or use akh morn!)

SB summoner felt so good and rewarding to play, a nice balance between the hyperactivity of a redmage bouncing around everywhere, and the "I don't move, the world moves around me" of a blackmage with damage to match. Now I'm slapping 12 buttons at once, staring at ~9 timers at once, being forced to root myself for most of my rotation or completely blow the now core mechanic of my rotation that is the all mighty ruin IV, all for middle of the pack damage because what? We have a res that I know I don't have the time to use, what with my delicate cooldown and timer setup, and a 15s 5% dps buff that's up every 3 minutes.

I don't have time to enjoy the fights.
I don't have time to appreciate the demi summons.
My egis feel weak, and the recursive weaving feels suffocating.
And the entire rotation feels like a whole lot of effort and planning for not a lot of reward.

Basically it feels like HW SMN stacked on top of ARR SMN wearing late SB SMN's skin as a disguise.

How are you guys using the R4 stacks? One way my friend pointed out was to save the stack for movement phases and to use to prevent overflow.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RenAshdoll

How are you guys using the R4 stacks? One way my friend pointed out was to save the stack for movement phases and to use to prevent overflow.

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I'm not struggling with it, I just don't like how the rotation obsessively focuses on it.
If you save it for only movement, you're wasting potential casts when your EAs hit 2 charges, or potential festers when your ED cools down, or ruination refreshes when tridisaster comes off of cooldown naturally, or when you need to akh morn.. etc. Basically whenever you're not in DWT/FBT, nearing 2 charges on EA (I & II) or have actual damage dealing ogcds to hit you should be using ruin IV. Waiting until you have to move is a waste if any of those conditions are met at any point.

Wouldn't you be glad to know that most of SMN spells are instant? If they are not, they can actually be made instant (by means of Dreadwyrm etc). By keeping that in mind, flexibility, mobility and even timers shouldn't be issues.


note: also, personally, it's the reason why I am not fond of BLM and instead choose to main SMN. Can't stand the long hard casting spells.

Meanwhile, there's so many oGCDs at so many points in the rotation that SMN has to make most of their standard cast spells also instant cast in order to handle them, because the devs want the class to play like a bard but doesn't just make everything instant cast at this point. Because why not.

The best thing about getting your class absolutely ruined and driven against a boulder is the people actually applauding SE for the "improvement".
SMN had a nice and steady flow in Storm, will neatly aligning cooldowns and burst phases.
Now we have this micro-management ridden weaving-massacre of poorly aligned CDs, Budget Bahamut phase, EVEN MORE Ruin spam and Egi Assault animation queues which screw over your opener more often than not.

Sure. Great change.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NoxLumina

The best thing about getting your class absolutely ruined and driven against a boulder is the people actually applauding SE for the "improvement".
SMN had a nice and steady flow in Storm, will neatly aligning cooldowns and burst phases.
Now we have this micro-management ridden weaving-massacre of poorly aligned CDs, Budget Bahamut phase, EVEN MORE Ruin spam and Egi Assault animation queues which screw over your opener more often than not.

Sure. Great change.

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It's tragic really. I would have thought that SB SMN had reached the pinnacle of "improvement," having its skill floor raised steadily by making aethertrail attunement stacks untimed and eventually always accumulated whether damage was dealt or not, reducing the total DoTs from four to two, and balancing said DoT's timers, but apparently in 5.0 "improvement" means a total class redesign.

A part of me has always feared this would happen because of the great rift between people who have enjoyed SMN for what it was since ARR and people who have wanted SMN to be "more like an actual FF summoner." The only reason for such sweeping changes to the class that I can imagine is an attempt to appease more people, as the game gets more popular, by making it feel like it's utilizing its summons more. But even that is a farce because nothing really changed on that front. Egi-Assaults are the same skills that have always been there, it's just that now you have to use them when before you could just press Sic (I wonder if anyone who thought SMN before 5.0 was boring ever tried to play with Obey). As for Bahamut, removing wyrmwaves from oGCDs is not making me feel any more like a summoner with even less involvement in what he can do. There's always been quirks in dealing with the egis but they are making me feel like a zookeeper more than ever now.

I don't read a whole lot of community stuff but I sure hope that there's a noticeable amount of disappointment with the changes. It'll never go back to the way it was but for as bad as it is, it's not without the possibility for improvement.

I thought we were making fun of being a Ruin Mage and now we are spamming ruin like never before. There are way too many ogcd to hit and the opening is way too complicated. It is more like hitting 20 buttons for the first 30 second in an opener. The mobility of smn is almost gone cause we have to stand and cast Ruin 3. If we hit ruin 2, dps goes down. It is much better just to play rdm or blm. RDM rotation is still the same and only add one more skill at the end of their rotation.

I feel like smn has to work way too hard to get the same amount of dps like rdm.

Honestly,

Reading this thread makes me happy that other SMN players feel the same as I do with regards to how SB summoner played. I absolutely loved the job and its clear to me how important it was for us to have Aetherflow for our clock in our cycle. If the option is between pre-pull waiting with old aetherflow system and the 0 waiting with the current, please give back the old one.

I'll echo the opinion of most others here, SB summoner felt good and rewarding to play. The current incarnation tries to punish you at every corner:

"You didn't press this button on cooldown because you weren't watching your bars enough!"
"See this low HP add which will die in a few hits?" Put your dots on it or suffer half damage on your Ruins! Whats that? its dying so fast anyway that you're better servered to spam weak ruins? TOO BAD!"
"Remember when you felt good when there was downtime? Now you can feel awful!"
"Flexible trance timings? Whats that? Press Ruin 2 instead if Trances dont line up - yeah spamming Ruin 2 is way better than when you had to smartly plan to use trances for movement! This is way more fun!"
"Don't you enjoy your pets doing 2.4k per burning strike when you're doing 14k per Ruin?! (This is literally less than ifrit damage at 80) You don't like seeing your pets this weak?"
"NEW MOVE! Energy Siphon! Its good we promise! Really!"
"We felt you guys were interacting too much with bahamut so we made him less interactable and reduced his power level for you. Please enjoy this change whilst we release the much cooler phoenix which will show him up in every way imaginable!"
"We thought Aetherflow was stressful so we made it even more stressful by halfing the cooldown and triggering you when mobs in dungeons die with 1s left on the CD - you can thank us later!"
"We solved pre-pull Aetherflow for you so you don't have to wait anymore! We just made it worse to use in every way imaginable!"
"Did you enjoy being rewarded for the effort you put into mastering the job and perfoming well? TOO BAD!"
"We figured what REALLY makes summoner enjoy themselves is weaving those 40 potency OGCDs with Ruin 2 that barely brings it above Ruin 3 - that really gets them going."

I honestly would've bet that SMN was gonna get a passive for "if out of combat for X seconds, automatically get aetherflow III" with an internal cooldown and where X < 10 seconds. as a quality of life...

First the problem with decrease oGCDS mean we have to lose something, and place it somewhere else. If that is okay with everyone then we can move forward.

Currently the oGCDs equal 5 every 30s; Energy Drain, Fester X 2, EA1 and EA2. Sorry but EA charges doesn't negate the fact they are 30s recast timers. Clearly SE saw how the community handled 4.0 Demi-Bahamut Phase and thought that is what people enjoyed.

Next Trance doesn't have as a progressive rotation like 4.0 did. I believe this more than anything is throwing everyone off their game. 4.0 was AF > ______, ______, _____ > DWT > AF > ______, ______, ______> DWT > Demi-B
5.0 is now DWT > Demi-B > FBT+Demi-P.

So if people do want oGCDs cut down while playing similar to 4.1 here is my feedback.

1) Dreadwyrm Trance - Increase Egi Damage by 15%.
Additional Effect: Reduces spell casting time by 2.5 seconds
Additional Effect: Resets Tri-disaster recast timer
Additional Effect: Changes Ruin III to Fester and Outburst to Painflare.
Additional Effect: Upon end, unlock Dreadwyrm Trance II
Duration: 20s
Recast time: 40s

2) Dreadwyrm Trance II - Summons Demi-Bahamut to fight by your side. Each time you cast a spell on an enemy, Demi-Bahamut will execute Wyrmwave on the same target.
Additional Effect: Reduces spell casting time by 2.5 seconds
Additional Effect: Resets Tri-disaster recast timer
Additional Effect: Changes Ruin III to Fester and Outburst to Painflare.
Additional Effect: Upon end, unlock Firebird Trance
Duration: 20s
Recast time: 40s

3) Firebird Trance - Summons Demi-Phoenix to fight by your side, which executes Everlasting Flight as it manifests. Each time you cast a spell on an enemy, Demi-Phoenix will execute Scarlet Flame on the same target.
Additional Effect: Reduces spell casting time by 2.5 seconds
Additional Effect: Resets Tri-disaster recast timer
Additional Effect: Changes Ruin III to Fountain of Fire and Outburst to Brand of Purgatory
Duration: 20s
Recast time: 40s

4) Energy Drain / Energy Siphon would now have a maximum charge of 2 Aetherflow would have a maximum of 4 stack rather than two.

5) Egi Assault will now consume Aetherflow stacks.

6) Egi Assault 1 changes
-Crimson Cyclone deals fire damage with a potency of 200. Charges at enemy (Gap
Closer)
-Aerial Slash deals wind damage with a potency of 100 to target and all enemies nearby
it.

7) Egi Assault 2 Changes
-Flaming Crush Deals fire damage with a potency of 100 to target.
Additional Effect: Fire damage over time
Potency: 15
Duration: 30s
-Slipstream deals wind damage with a potency of 40 to target and all enemies nearby it.
Additional Effect: Creates a windstorm centered around the target, dealing damage to any enemies who enter
Potency: 15
Duration: 30s

8) Enkindle Changes
-Aerial Blast Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 400 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
-Inferno deals fire damage with a potency of 500 to target.

These changes are radical but will give a more understandable progression of trance in the form that one build to another and then another; DWT > DWT+Demi-B > FBT +DemiP. It lowers oGCDs from 10 to 6 every 60s while keeping all skills and their dps. It adds more dps weight to Egi and rewards players for actually pushing the added buttons. Obviously potency number would require changing to balance it all out

These are idea and personally I don't even know if I would like it. The goal was to make a workable Trance system, reduce oGCDs, and make Egi Action do the dps they deserve.

I don't think putting SMN on a 40 second timer is the best choice, nor is bringing it back to the days of having trances with no summons. Fights operate on 30/60/120/180m timers typically, and SMN not being on the 60s timer with its primary rotation will cause more problems than it solves. That said, I 100% fully believe DB should be rolled into DWT at the very least, and merging Fester and Painflare directly into the rotation is an interesting choice that would solve the Aetherflow issue.

But it causes the problem of lower level SMN being a lot weaker and that would need to be solved as well.

Also, DoTs on pets are a bad idea, esp. 30s DoTs, since it means your opener will clip. The current Garuda AoE rotation has the same problem with egi-shadowflare clipping itself if cast within 15 seconds, as well. That said, I'm all for the egi having more damage in the short term so EA feels better.

Like everyone else has said, it is pretty busy. Once you get used to it though it’s easy to go with the flow. I’ve mained SMN for 6 years almost now from back to the 2.0 days. EVERY expansion so far has required me to setup my hotbar a different way or learn different ways of doing things. It’ll come in time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Taranok

I don't think putting SMN on a 40 second timer is the best choice, nor is bringing it back to the days of having trances with no summons. Fights operate on 30/60/120/180m timers typically, and SMN not being on the 60s timer with its primary rotation will cause more problems than it solves. That said, I 100% fully believe DB should be rolled into DWT at the very least, and merging Fester and Painflare directly into the rotation is an interesting choice that would solve the Aetherflow issue.

But it causes the problem of lower level SMN being a lot weaker and that would need to be solved as well.

Also, DoTs on pets are a bad idea, esp. 30s DoTs, since it means your opener will clip. The current Garuda AoE rotation has the same problem with egi-shadowflare clipping itself if cast within 15 seconds, as well. That said, I'm all for the egi having more damage in the short term so EA feels better.

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Actually, it already is on a 40s timer, people just don't know it XD DWT, Demi-B, FBT are all there in a 120s rotation. 120 divided by 3 equals 40s. This just improves the flow of the rotation dividing up the downtime evenly. As far as DoTs' for 30s, well you get 2 EA1 and 2 EA2 in 60s as of now. EA2 has a recast of 30s. So you have the option to keep that DoT 100% of the time. The goal it is to keep track and not clip or you can push your dps to unlock ruin IV faster. As I stated though, this isn't my personal choice however but and option to meet some of the concerns I see on the boards.

Personally I would do like to see the following:
-Reduce DWT/FBT recast time to 45s or 50s
-Give Energy Drains two charges and allow 4 stacks of Aetherflow
-Increase the damage of Egi Assaults as stated above.
-Increase the radius of Slipstream's Gale Enforcer ground targeting
-Increase Outburst to 80 potency
-Increase Energy Siphon to 60
-Add Egi DPS boost to DWT
-Add an additional effect to Demi-Bahamut that spells have a % chance to upgrade Wyrmwave to Flare or add back the option that actions cause wyrmwave.

Except that each individual thing being on a 40s cycle means that you're not going to have Trances up for Trick Attack for 2 of them. That's my point. Each individual rotation being on 40s means 2 of every 3 major burst window of the class is off the 60s timer, and that doesn't work well for how abilities are designed. Furthermore, that would just be absolute pandemonium for Devotion and its timing, since it's already bad in how it fits into the rotation.

I’ll be honest, I’m having a pretty hard time learning the SMN rotation at 80. I played SMN in 2.0, and in 3.0 I technically played, but some real life stuff prevented me from endgame. In 4.0 I decided to make the jump to RDM, which felt like refreshing.

With the addition of Phoenix, I really wanted to get back to my roots. That being said it’s a really complicated job. The opener is absolutely insane. So many timers to keep track of. I feel like once you’ve weaves in the egi assaults it calms down a bit, and the trance periods help, but between trances we have a lot to do.

I think some small changes they could make:

Double the potency of egi assault 1 + 2, increase their recast timers to 1 min each, but also double the damage and have them each give 2 ruin IVs.

Roll summon Bahamut into DWT so it feels more similar to Phoenix.

Increase the timer of energy drain to 1 min and have it give us 4 Aetherflow stacks.

These small changes would help with the oGCD bloat a little bit

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sequora

With the addition of Phoenix, I really wanted to get back to my roots. That being said it’s a really complicated job. The opener is absolutely insane. So many timers to keep track of. I feel like once you’ve weaves in the egi assaults it calms down a bit, and the trance periods help, but between trances we have a lot to do.

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With how many timers summoner is managing I think they should rename it to chronomancer LOL people wanted time mage for a long time - here it is.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Taranok

Except that each individual thing being on a 40s cycle means that you're not going to have Trances up for Trick Attack for 2 of them. That's my point. Each individual rotation being on 40s means 2 of every 3 major burst window of the class is off the 60s timer, and that doesn't work well for how abilities are designed. Furthermore, that would just be absolute pandemonium for Devotion and its timing, since it's already bad in how it fits into the rotation.

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It's never a good idea to design one job around another. If we added DWT and Demi-Bahamut, kept the 20s duration with 60s recast time you would have over 40s of filler after each Trance. That is a long time

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

It's never a good idea to design one job around another. If we added DWT and Demi-Bahamut, kept the 20s duration with 60s recast time you would have over 40s of filler after each Trance. That is a long time

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That might be correct, except that it also coincidentally coincides with boss mechanics as well. The only classes that ever operated on an odd timer are Tank and Healer because tank busters preferred 40s mechanics, and if your goal is to design the class such that it cannot play nice with other people, ever, then a good way to do it is to take it off the 60s timer. BLM is a bit mushroom in this regard as well because it doesn't have a timer, merely a variable speed rotation that outputs relatively consistent damage. Every other class operates on multiples of 30, 60, 120, and 180 seconds, and intentionally designing a class outside that doesn't help the class, it hurts it.