Yet another SMN thread: SMN is the only job that doesn't have a gauge/proc management

It's okay that there's a dps job that has a simple, small kit.
Every job doesn't need to be super complex.

I'd take 3 jobs that have 10 buttons but feel really different over 3 jobs with 32 buttons that all feel the same.

I normally play GNB for my carpal tunnel fix, but now and then I wanna relax as SMN.

Healers are the worst of both worlds though. Not just simple, just infuriatingly boring 1-spam + a dot across all 4 jobs.

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Originally Posted by Kansene

It's okay that there's a dps job that has a simple, small kit.
Every job doesn't need to be super complex.

I'd take 3 jobs that have 10 buttons but feel really different over 3 jobs with 32 buttons that all feel the same.

I normally play GNB for my carpal tunnel fix, but now and then I wanna relax as SMN.

Healers are the worst of both worlds though. Not just simple, just infuriatingly boring 1-spam + a dot across all 4 jobs.

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It's not about the complexity, it's about being interesting. Samurai and Red Mage are quite easy jobs and I don't see anyone complaining about them.

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Originally Posted by Vandso

It's not about the complexity, it's about being interesting. Samurai and Red Mage are quite easy jobs and I don't see anyone complaining about them.

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Both these jobs benefit from the fact they have low skill floors and medium to high skill ceilings.

SMN the floor is the ceiling.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

Both these jobs benefit from the fact they have low skill floors and medium to high skill ceilings.

SMN the floor is the ceiling.

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Couldn't agree more.

Honestly, as someone who loves SMN, but had to move forward with another job, I agree with the OP. The only thing that the rework managed to do impressively was to capture the "I'm a Summoner!" feeling by incorporating the gemstone primals (hint, SE: we need the other 3 elements in 7.0!). Before It never felt good thematically, dot managing and all of that, but at least felt engaging to play.

Ironically, the new SMN is devoid of buttons, but if you analyze the kit... there's even a couple of redundant 'bloaty' actions that could easily be a button transforming into another, like Gemshine and Ruin 3, or the fact that Energy Drain and Energy Siphon could be the same key with little to no deficit to the overall feel of the rotation.

The rework feels like it was started by someone with a great idea and this person left the process midway and somebody else had to execute the rest of the however it was able to.

There's still a chance to turn SMN into a great job in 7.0, even if the complexity is not that high. The 'foundation work' is still there, and there's room literally everywhere to add complexity. I would personally start by saying adieu to the Aetherflow system and its related actions and give SMN a completely new tool/gauge to manage their ogcds. Primal power? Something gained during the demi phases that fuels primal ogcds to be used whenever the gemstones are active? I don't know, something like that.

I suspect that part of the reason the rework feels like it's lacking something is because they deliberately omitted a few things with the intent of giving them back to us at level 100 cap.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

I suspect that part of the reason the rework feels like it's lacking something is because they deliberately omitted a few things with the intent of giving them back to us at level 100 cap.

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Why force players to play an unfinished job for 2.5 years tho?

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

Why force players to play an unfinished job for 2.5 years tho?

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While I know that might be the case for the other 3 gemstone element/primals... I agree. It doesn't seem like a smart move at all, especially in a niche where there's only 2 other jobs to choose from, and certainly we could have more depth with the current kit. SMN had some problems with the production and it shipped with the bare minimum + fancy visuals would be the best bet.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

Why force players to play an unfinished job for 2.5 years tho?

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apologies for the waybackmachine link, the sub is down today:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221020...om/t6eJLaj.png

Unless I'm looking at that totally incorrectly, SMN appears to be very popular for an "unfinished job".

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

Why force players to play an unfinished job for 2.5 years tho?

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Because they didn't want to gut and rework the job again in 2.5 years.

90 feels finished "enough" to me - capstone summons, the additional abilities that do things like the AOE puddle and the draw in for Ifrit, and with the potential to add a couple of extra steps to the rotation in the future, probably some additional oGCD things, or a guage that can be filled and then used during the tail end of Bahamut or Phoenix phases.

Or it could just be a second charge of Energy Drain or Ruin IV if they are being really lazy.