Summoner and the upcoming changes

Very disappointed with the new SMN. It has been seriously crippled compared to the way it was, anyone denying that really needs help.

I haven't used it much and have been maining SCH instead in early access on my other character.

Removing the pet heal (Sustain) was silly. The whole point of having a pet was that you could heal it up when soloing. The DoTs are now totally underwhelming too.

Too much nerf-bat, not enough added to make it worthwhile.

I get lvl 70 yesterday and i feel like stack management is more punishing than ever before. Gameplay is totally different. Summoner is like totally different class than before. Still dont know what would be the most effective way use bahamut and contagion and aetherflows etc. Gameplay also feels interesting no idea how overpowered/underpowered it really is before you can compare numbers against other classes.

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Originally Posted by Sunako

(...) Gameplay is totally different. Summoner is like totally different class than before. (...) Gameplay also feels interesting (...)

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First of all gz for the dragon :3

Second although i liked the way HW summoner was to play with the prio system rota and dot-management, im personally really looking forward the 180 degree shift - I like trying out new things which are completely different than everything before ^^

Vacation will end 2morrow can't wait to jump in as well... finally :o

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Originally Posted by Fyce

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Isn't the point of Titan to "tank?" I mean...the tooltip for Titan is "Summon a tank-type pet" so I guess everyone expects a tank to be summoned? Titan just has more HP as his "tank" not defense. This went well with Sustain because Titan has NO defense - just a large amount of HP and Sustain healed for maxhp%.

Even more so, I'm not sure about others, but my Titan egi died during the 63 job quest. Considering that a summoner's egi is a large portion of their damage, simply "letting your egi die" is a dps loss.

Not trying to call you out or anything, these are just concerns for leveling. Titan has always been the LEVELING egi or solo content. Since everyone is LEVELING, we are feeling the nerfs hard, but when everyone hits 70, titan won't be used anymore, just like 60 cap - and neither will Sustain. Sustain was basically only used when leveling or soloing fates/content anyways.

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Originally Posted by TraeSnow

Sustain was basically only used when leveling or soloing fates/content anyways.

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I agree with the leveling part but not on the part that it became useless afterwards - i personally used it in pvp and savage quite a lot as well... .___.

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Originally Posted by Neela

I agree with the leveling part but not on the part that it became useless afterwards - i personally used it in pvp and savage quite a lot as well... .___.

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I agree in certain instances it is viable, but a majority of the time, your Egi gets healed from AoE heals, enough to keep it alive if it does get killed. I mean sure, there were certain times where sustain was used, but it was rare.

The new SMN kind of sucks to play. Not being able to do aetherflow while in trance is just so bad. It make the job fight itself, you have multiple abilities pulling in different directions. I don't care if it does a billion dps or anything, it just isn't fun to play. Not being able to do AF abilities in trance is just so freaking boring. And why does doing trance when I have Summon Bahamut available erase my Summon Bahamut stacks? Like how clunky can you make this job?

I also don't like the new shadowflare, I don't like Devotion (a tiny buff to one player closest to the pet? WTF. Make it AOE or targetable).

They should just go back to the old SMN but add in bahamut and the tri-d proc.

And put my goddam dreadwyrm timers and AF stacks back on my buff bar. I don't want to look at the stupid gauge. Before everything was in one convenient location for me to easily look at.

I used to like SMN but I'm definitely switching off. It's only good now in PvP.

I'm currently lvl 68 and i love the new gameplay, ifrit being of use now ^^. But yeah that's too bad the remove of sustain, titan is just useless now, i do solo content with ifrit/garuda and my chocobo :s.
Frankly the changes on contagion and radiant shield are great, now i can use both of them according to party composition or if it's solo target or aoe i must do.

Also the buff tri-disaster does on ruin is really nice (when ruin 4 procs <3), and the fact that dreadwyrm transe reset the timer allows some cool things ^^.

I can't wait to get my hands on bahamut >_< and the lore of the new quest is really good ^^. So far i love what they have done in this expansion.

I forgot to mention, the pets seems to be a lot more responsive now and they fixed the bug where "if you hit enkidle and the mob dies before the egi does its attack", the timer of enkidle now is NOT on cooldown, that's great ^^. (it's as if you never pushed the button)

It really seems the new smn is kinda polarizing - some love it, the others hate it... ^^ For me polarizing is a good sign, it shows SE really made a difference this time. I'm honestly sry for those who can't get used to it - loosing something you like/love is never easy : /

I am aswell one of those people who love the new summoner. Tough I have to admit that I didn't play mine before SB, so I cannot realy compare to the Situation pre-patch.

However, I have to strongly take a word to all People that are complaining right now:

1. I am lvl 65 right now. I can count the times my Titan egi died on me on one Hand. Seriously, what's wrong with you guys complaining about this? Summoner was in soloplay completely overpowered with an Egi that tanked all the Mobs and never died! As a SMN you were able to do dungeons solo, which no class (except warrior maybe) was able to. That was not working as intended und thus had to be adressed. All SE did, was to bring all DPS to equal terms.

And what are you doing anyway that your Titan egi dies all the time? I dont even use Titan but Garuda and it never dies. Are you pulling the whole map? If so: You are doing it wrong. Get over it. SE doesnt want to do us Mass-Pulls anymore. Just look at the huge AoE-Nerfs and you'll get it. So if you attack one after another, none of your egis will ever die! If it is low on health after several monsterpulls, just re-summon it. Problem solved. I really think people are exaggerating about this.

2. Compared to the other classes I played (namely DRK, RDM and BLM) I can tell you: Every class has been hugely simplified! My DRK (was my Main before SB) is now terrible boring to play! Compared to him, my summoner brims over with complexity. The Rotation with either aetherflow or bahamut-stacks are challengeing and make for a nice variety of Rotation and gameplay. It may be no more that complex as it was before, and yes I admit that it sucks if you have to cast aetherflow with 2 bahamutstacks once you messed up the last aetherflow stack(it's kinda wasted then) but all in all, summoner still is very nice to play. And on lvl70 Bahamut will again add a lot of complexity to the class. Other classes get a simple non relevant GCD Skill at lvl70...

Q: I have one question to all summoners, who like and accept the new mechanics and are leveling currently: Do you use Garuda or Ifrit-Egi? With the new changes made, I cannot decide which one is the better option on current meta.

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Originally Posted by Talec

1. I am lvl 65 right now. I can count the times my Titan egi died on me on one Hand. Seriously, what's wrong with you guys complaining about this? Summoner was in soloplay completely overpowered with an Egi that tanked all the Mobs and never died! As a SMN you were able to do dungeons solo, which no class (except warrior maybe) was able to. That was not working as intended und thus had to be adressed. All SE did, was to bring all DPS to equal terms.

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After seeing my friend playing red mage crit with vercure for over 8,000 hp then follow up with a dual casted cure, I fail to see how all DPS are equal in ability to solo content. I still stand by the opinion that they either modify physick to scale with intelligence for summoners like red mage and their vercure, or replace physick with something similar to sustain for summoner.

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Originally Posted by Talec

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I guess SMN was able to tank entire dungeons and solo them with just titan egi but how is it that only a warrior could do the same? These would have to be oddly specific dungeons. What dungeons are we talking about here? I assure you a scholar or other healers can do the same. But how is this even a talking point? Is this really even an issue? It seems like the most pointless issue and one that doesn't even deserve attention. Spellbinder has a great comment regarding this tho.

And yes, garuda can die. I've played a lot of summoner in HW and in SB - Heck it was my main for the creator savage content - and I've had garuda die maybe 3 to 5 times. Garuda dies a lot in fates usually. Further, I have no idea what this mass pulls with summoner is. I thought this was only a dungeon thing? Do people mass pull mobs and AOE and level that way? Seems incredibly inefficient. If you're mass-pulling in SB fates, the only thing you'll accomplish without a healer is killing yourself really fast.

Further, as a summoner main, I can't see how Bahamut adds to the complexity of the class. You just get to deathflare 2x more with bahamut than with the usual dreadwyrm trance. I can see how the class looks complex if you just recently got acquainted with summoner.

As to your last point: the meta doesn't matter atm. There is no set meta and it shouldn't really be relevant at the levelling stage. That said, I don't see the point in using ifrit whilst levelling for a physical damage buff. Garuda seems to be the superior option considering most of our damage is magic and killing the mob faster is usually what matters. With my gear/damage, I just rip hate off my titan egi so there is no point in using that summon.

Just to add on my experience of summoner so far. Level 60 is significantly weaker in comparison to HW summoner. You lose 1 dot, 50 potency on Ruin 3, Deathflare nerf + Spur being removed. I'll have to wait until 70 to add my thoughts on it. But so far, my damage has been fine considering i'm best in slot. That said, I have enjoyed red mage (this class is busted in POTD - 8 min run with good pomanders) and black mage significantly more so far.

Further, from what I've seen, its the casual summoner players or those new to the class that are enjoying the class (which is great!) more so than the vets who have played the class through stormblood (which isn't as great). Every savage raider I've talked to that has played summoner in savage raids hates the changes: the main complaint being that it looks boring. I do know that my parses will be nowhere as good at 60 as they were back in HW disregarding the nerfs to damage buffing abilities (most were removed/class class restricted). If numbers are low for summoner they'll hopefully be tweaked. The main concern that seems to be coming from a lot of HW SMN raid veterans is that the class is boring with the changes made to it or that some of the changes are clunky. I'll have to level RDM, BLM and SMN to 70 though to properly compare with ACT.

I am a smn raider as well and I don't think it's boring - please don't put your opinion on others in general - there are 2 other smn in my fc both are raiding as well just one of us changed to RDM what makes 2 out of 3 still enjoy the cls. .___.

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the meta doesn't matter atm. There is no set meta and it shouldn't really be relevant at the levelling stage.

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though I agree at this point it's way to early to talk but raid meta without comparison of grp-synergy and parsing on hardfacts.

Edit: Oh lol you were talking bout meta in usin egis - my bad but still opinion bout raid meta stays ^^

As soon as I reach level 70 on SMN I'm switching my main to Black Mage or Red Mage. This is just extremely clunky to play and playing with Bahamut in PvP I fail to see how that's going to make it any more exciting. I can get that casual players might enjoy it but trying to get skills like Devotion and Contagion to go off when you want them for optimal DPS is just extremely frustrating, nine times out of ten they won't go off. Rouse and Enkindle are completely out of sync now, you don't even have to pay attention to your DoTs anymore. I really enjoyed how level 60 SMN played and how fluid it was, this is just a complete mess and yawn inducing in primal fights. I had more fun playing a level 50 RDM on a dummy than I have had at any moment playing SMN in the expansion.

I've mained SMN throughout all 3 Alexander Savage modes and there was never a dull moment. Seeing how boring and clunky this is I'm definitely not looking forward to raid in Omega Savage with the Summoner job.

If I was going to play SMN at this point, it would be in PVP, strangely plays miles better in PVP than in PVE, which is amusing considering I thought the total opposite during Heavensward. But yeah, I tried to like it, I tried to adjust to it, but now that I am 69 I think I can safely tell myself that this is just a throwback to the 2.0 era, where I am back to ruin spamming for the rest of time since well timed tri-disaster means you generally don't find yourself manually placing the DoTs back on, with the 'parlour trick' deathflare & bahamut in between. What with Shadow Flare being like it is and using swiftcast merely to summon my pet back after it died for the 3rd time in a boss fight? (I'm looking at you final boss in the lv 67 dungeon), yeah screw that.

But hey, at least we got Lucid dream right? Because that's what I want to be in right now, a dream.

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Originally Posted by Neela

I am a smn raider as well and I don't think it's boring - please don't put your opinion on others in general - there are 2 other smn in my fc both are raiding as well just one of us changed to RDM what makes 2 out of 3 still enjoy the cls. .___.

though I agree at this point it's way to early to talk but raid meta without comparison of grp-synergy and parsing on hardfacts.

Edit: Oh lol you were talking bout meta in usin egis - my bad but still opinion bout raid meta stays ^^

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When I was talking about savage raiding summoners, I'm talking about those who pushed the dps to the highest possible: Those who had orange/purple parses on fflogs. Besides, I don't think you've tried the new summoner have you? I'm saying the SB version is pretty boring so far! The vast majority of those commenting here that played summoner in HW are saying that the new summoner is pretty boring as the above 2 responses and the other comments in the thread show.

Anyways, I do have to add. PVP summoner is great

From a levelling Summoner, changes I would like to see:

Okay, now that Rescue is in the game, I'd like a new pet skill - Leash. Which is essentially Rescue but strictly for our pets.

Miasma, Bio, and Bane... I feel these three skills are more for Scholar than Summoner TBH. They are "too support". Minimal DPS, minimal damage. Instead I would have them replaced with say - Armor break, Poison Touch, and Poison Breath via a trait just for Summoners (Scholar does has traits that Summoner doesn't so exclusive traits between the two is possible). These would give more damage, lower DoT numbers, and Poison Breath would not be dependent on Armor and Poison to do an AOE just Aethflow. It would be better for DPS and make it feel less like a support class.

Cont.

A new version of Sustain that's like Physick except it is empowered by Intelligence and heals both your pet and yourself at the same time, and can only be used on your pet and yourself. A Summoner trait would replace Physick with it (and Scholar's would get a Physick II which is a stronger heal).

* Note I think these kind of changes should happen for 30 and be Job only skills. It would differentiate Scholar and Summoner more.

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Originally Posted by Tsukaasa

I forgot to mention, the pets seems to be a lot more responsive now and they fixed the bug where "if you hit enkidle and the mob dies before the egi does its attack", the timer of enkidle now is NOT on cooldown, that's great ^^. (it's as if you never pushed the button)

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That's what I came here to look for, I'm glad to know that not only are you having fun with the new pets but the enkindle part and responsiveness of the pets is better. So..I can remove the macro where I ask the move to activate 50 times now? Things like Enkindle and other moves I'd have to just hit over and over if they didn't activate.

I just started to re-do my hotbars and macros for SMN and notice some spaces I need to fill up, so I plan to take this up to 70 now. I'm sad for Sustain but this is way down the list of "things I care about."

Now to adjust these Role skills, but it looks like before 50 it's a bit of a dull time. Garuda still has the knockback..which I wash hoping to see go.

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Originally Posted by Sunako

Did some Susano extreme farms today and players seems to hate my Bahamut there because it is too big and players can not see mechanics. Is there any way hide that pet?

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Nope! This problem was brought up whenever these egi debates came up and everyone was more than willing to accept that. Now I know what to expect.

Contagion, Enkindle and now Devotion are all still very unresponsive skills. You're gonna still have to press them 50 times to make them go off.

Edit: Actually, looking at them closely Enkindle is a lot more responsive than it used to be, however Contagion and Devotion still need to be spammed to ensure they'll go off.

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Originally Posted by Talec

Q: I have one question to all summoners, who like and accept the new mechanics and are leveling currently: Do you use Garuda or Ifrit-Egi? With the new changes made, I cannot decide which one is the better option on current meta.

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I prefer to use ifrit on big pulls/trash mobs since radiant shield will hit back any mob attacking the tank, and on bosses garuda for contagion.
But i think this decision might change according to 8 man party composition. (whether there is more magical dps or physical ones and also movement heavy fights)

Did some Susano extreme farms today and players seems to hate my Bahamut there because it is too big and players can not see mechanics. Is there any way hide that pet?

Having played SMN since its release until now, this feels like a major downgrade back to what it was pre-HW. I am certain by 70 I will enjoy it more, but I can't imagine leveling it up now with the little ability it has at lower levels. Even with the cross-role abilities/actions on my bar...there is no coherent rotation or anything that will truly buff my damage numbers without having to spam, which isn't what I was hoping for at all. I understand trying to balance the class to make it more equal to others...but this isn't balance, it is gimping. I love SMN, so please do something about this, because I felt tempted to switch to another class, and I haven't felt that way before.

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Originally Posted by Talec

Q: I have one question to all summoners, who like and accept the new mechanics and are leveling currently: Do you use Garuda or Ifrit-Egi? With the new changes made, I cannot decide which one is the better option on current meta.

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I would say that, in theory, we need to use both. Since Radiant Shield and Contation don't share the same cooldown, you can use Contagion with Garuda and then swap to Ifrit with Swiftcast to use Radiant Shield. Or the other way. In fact, Ifrit doing Radiant Shield during pre-pull and then swapping to Garuda for Contagion a few seconds before the pull is probably the best thing since Garuda doesn't have to move.
But finding the optimal opener will require some theory crafting. Quite a lot actually.

Whatever the case, every minute you can use both Contagion and Radiant shield.

SMN is quite a busy job now in terms of priority management.

I can't imagine that we would ever use two abilities, post-pull, not directly related to damage (and many seconds of pets not attacking) in our opener. We most certainly wouldn't go from Ifrit to Garuda if that's the case, because you would either have to burn up Rouse when switching out Ifrit after Enkindle, or you'd have to wait to use Garuda's. Rouse is generally used pre-pull anyway.

Also, shoutout to this guy:

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Originally Posted by Talec

I am aswell one of those people who love the new summoner. Tough I have to admit that I didn't play mine before SB

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for criticizing SMNs for not liking the way SMN is now while admitting he didn't play SMN before. But thanks for your expert analysis.

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Originally Posted by Brinzy

I can't imagine that we would ever use two abilities, post-pull, not directly related to damage (and many seconds of pets not attacking) in our opener. We most certainly wouldn't go from Ifrit to Garuda if that's the case, because you would either have to burn up Rouse when switching out Ifrit after Enkindle, or you'd have to wait to use Garuda's. Rouse is generally used pre-pull anyway.

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That's why I said "pre-pull", and not "post-pull".

Like, 5 seconds before pull, using Radiant shield>Swiftcast>Summon Garuda>Rouse>and then either Contagion or start the opener (depends on when Contagion is best used... Probably during the first DWT, but at this point I'm not sure, the opener seems to have quite a few radically different options). Note that using Contagion just as the pull starts is a good way to make it quite responsive, since the pet isn't doing anything at that moment.

After that, switching pets to get a damage buff for magic damage (ourselves and healers... and maybe another caster) or physical damage (rest of the party) should overcome the DPS loss from the Egi not attacking once or twice.

There's a good chance our best opener will be based on multiplicative stacking, so we'll likely be using Contagion in tandem with Dreadwyrm and Tri-Disaster for Ruination. I don't know for sure because I haven't theorycrafted any of this and my math is trash, but Ruin 3 with all three of these up is hitting for 150*1.1*1.1*1.1 = 199.65 potency, so basically old Ruin 3. Ruin 4 would be hitting for 266.2 potency. Would love for someone with a deeper grasp on this than me to confirm this or slam these numbers.

With that said, I wasn't aware that Contagion and Radiant Shield didn't share a CD. I know that, at some point, SCH fairies shared CDs across certain abilities, so I'm surprised to hear that these two don't. Honestly, I haven't tried it. Also, there's generally so little damage at the start of fights that RS probably won't be worth burning Swiftcast over, which could instead be used to fit in another Ruin 3/4 during Dreadwyrm.

I've now obtained level 70 on Summoner and I still think the job is very clunky. Trying to get your contagion to go off at points of high burst and it failing you - with the old contagion there was at least a little bit of leeway. Furthermore, playing with Bahamut if you even have to move a tiny pixel to avoid a mechanic/AoE then your bahamut moves with you instead of staying static like the other egis. Ideally you would want to use contagion just before you go into DWT + Tri-Disaster correct? To gain buffed dot damage + ruination + further damage with your Ruin III/IV, however it just really doesn't co-operate and is just really disappointing to play. I think I've made my decision and think I will scrap playing Summoner from now on unless there's some significant changes to the job.

One positive note though, I do love how Lucid Dreaming works with Summoner - using it at points means you can get a very high Ruin III output while outside Dreadwrym, which does add a level of actual interesting gameplay to the job, I would have loved to have that ability on level 60 summoner before the expansion.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

After that, switching pets to get a damage buff for magic damage (ourselves and healers... and maybe another caster) or physical damage (rest of the party) should overcome the DPS loss from the Egi not attacking once or twice.

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Why would our opener need to have a summon and resummon, and who is giving us all this time for summoning, unsummoning, and resummoning pre and post battle? Because last time I checked, I barely got a protect or stoneskin before someone runs in and starts the battle, not to mention having to switch summons again, and wasting my swiftcast. I guess if the devs somehow made it obvious we need to summon and resummon as part of our rotation, but that isn't the case. They just made these changes with a lot of things in mind it seems, but not with Summoner in mind. A lot of these changes feel like gimping SMN's DPS ability to make others standout more much like MNK who was one of the best DPS and is now starting to take a backseat.

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Originally Posted by artemos7

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I'm not talking about casual roulettes. I'm talking about extreme trials and raids. Pre-pull countdowns are very common in these types of content.
About Swiftcast, since the changes to Shadowflare, its availability went up a lot. Besides, improving party DPS is absolutly not a waste of a 60s cooldown.

The changes made to Contagion and Radiant Shield, plus being able to use both buffs at the same time, and the change to Shadowflare (indirect Swiftcast usage modification) are definitly obvious enough to make some theories about using these buffs.

If you don't see that and don't have experience regarding endgame content, then it's probably not as obvious for you.

Anyway, doing this pre-pull is completly doable and mostly free. If people don't do it, it's a clear and objective DPS loss for the group.

My biggest problem with Smn as it stands is the Aetherflow lockout. I understand why the lock out is there, but slowing down Smn seems like a really bad design choose. Unless we were using the Job in a unintended way all along, and the expansion was their way of patching the job?

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Originally Posted by Bigcat9715

Unless we were using the Job in a unintended way all along, and the expansion was their way of patching the job?

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You actually might be on to something here, cuz I remember when they first unveiled Dreadwyrm Trance, Yoshi-P was saying the idea behind it was to give SMN something to do while Aetherflow was on CD aside from just Ruin spam. Hmmm...

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Originally Posted by Sunako

Did some Susano extreme farms today and players seems to hate my Bahamut there because it is too big and players can not see mechanics. Is there any way hide that pet?

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How is that even possible unless they have the camera close up on their arse. Sounds more like bad players making excuses lol.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

Anyway, doing this pre-pull is completly doable and mostly free. If people don't do it, it's a clear and objective DPS loss for the group.

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Assuming you get several ticks from it, then yeah. You need four to make up for an extra Ruin 3 under Dreadwyrm. Assuming you get about 15 seconds worth of the shield in this manner, you also need to add a bit of delay from Rouse (relatively minor), your pet starting its attack, and pre-casts. It's possible we open with Tri-Disaster at 0 seconds, thus eliminating pre-casting; I haven't thought about it yet. I'd say five ticks are the bare minimum you need to get from the shield for it to be worth it - even if you got four and got the 200 potency, you lose out on a bit to holding for Ruin 3 thanks to delays.

There are few bosses - none I can think of immediately - that will damage players five times in the first ~15 seconds of the fight. It's an option if such a fight exists, but I wouldn't say it's a clear and objective DPS loss.

Finally Lv.70! Hurray.

Our egis need some kind of passive health regeneration. Something.

If our egi is going to be a core, integral part of our job then it needs to be kept alive

I'm NOT about to micro-manage my pet to pull it out of the endless circle, line, and sometimes a combination of both AoE markers.

I also hate the fact that on knockback, your egi's Enkindle and Aetherpact/Devotion will be interrupted.

Today I was moving my pet while I was doing Aetherpact and the ability went off but the buff was never applied. WTF. This job is such a clunky mess right now.

Yes I know we can still do some decent damage with it, but it's like trying to hammer a nail with a bowling ball. You have to constantly wrestle with the AF lockout, bahamut locking AF (even though you can still use stacks if you used it before bahamut, like where's the consistency?), pet lag (try moving the pet to a player and doing Aetherpact, rouse, and contagion...), bahamut locking pet actions (rouse, enkindle), and bahamut is just a twitchy mess. Plus all the timings are now super tight, as in you will miss your deathflare if you try to cut it close like before, and you will defiantly miss bahamut's 2nd flare if you want to hold it for a few seconds at the end not because you ran out of time, but because bahamut sometimes takes it's sweet time to do your actions because it likes to twitch around and follow you. And if you ever mess up a single AF stack now you are screwed for the next two minutes.

It feels like SE just wants you to play SMN this specific way. You are not allowed to change the rotation. "You will use your AF and then use DW to fill the remaining time, no mixing the two, and you will like it" is what they would say.

They basic killed summoner.
"Ahh, but your AoE was so high".
AoE was all we had.
"Ahh, but you got Bahamut".
Which can be summoned each 2 MINUTES.
"Ahh, but contagion has raid utility now".
If Garuda AT LEAST responded faster to our commands would be fine.
The nerfs on Bane, Aetherflow lock on DwT, Ruin 3, Deathflare, Shadowflare, lost of Spur and lost of a third Dot basically killed our AoE and our single target damage.
Was running susanoo ex today and ALL of the compos with SMN/BLM, BLM was at least doing 800 dps more than us.
So what? Now BLM has the best single target and the best AoE?
Is that just because the director of this game has BLM as his main?
Summoner was amazing to play in 3.0 and now they simply killed it.

I'll try to keep an open mind until I get to 70 and do some content, but I am concerned.

My concern is not about the DPS numbers. Those can be trivially fixed.

My primary concern is about the new design of the summoner class, as described to me, here and elsewhere. It seems that the class now resolves much more around ruin spamming, which is just super boring. It's not fun to play. I liked having to manage DOTs. It's way more fun than ruin spam.

I also just fundamentally disagree with design philosophy of making the game easier. The game was already pretty easy, and it was close to not keeping my interest. Making it easier still just means that the longtime players, who I assume are the majority of their money income, will stop playing. I don't know if I'm at that point, but I don't like where the game is heading.

Surely there is some way to throw a bone to the super casuals, without also destroying the fun for the hardcore players? Apparently the devs disagree. ~sigh~

I get the feeling, that SMN is not a very PS4-friendly Class. Managing the pet is so super hard on Controller. Moving it out of AoEs in time seems like impossible, moving him closer to a Person who should benefit from Aetherpact takes at least a couple of seconds for me. During this time I cannot do dmg, which is a huge DPS-loss.

Just got SMN to 70. Definitely not anywhere near mastering the job but here are my thoughts:

-Lucid dreaming allows SB SMN to spam Ruin 3 much more than HW SMN
-Not being able to aetherflow during trance makes the class much less flexible and is very annoying, and you now have to trance ~15s before aetherflow comes back
-Devotion seems useless and I use it to simply fish for Ruin 4 procs
-Ruin 4 procs often enough, especially if you use your pet abilities on cooldown
-Bahamut tends to "miss" a lot of wyrmblasts. For example, hardcasting Ruin 3 into Ruin 2 + a fester halfway through the GCD would only yield 2 wyrmblasts while just using two Ruin 2's with a fester would yield 3. For this reason, it seems that Ruin 2 spamming with the occasional R4 proc is the way to go during the Bahamut phase
-Contagion is now a less braindead skill; timing it correctly for burn phases is much more rewarding than mindlessly hitting it after tri-disaster (although I really wish the duration was extended for a bit longer than 15s)
-The tri-disaster reset is definitely interesting. While I have mainly been using tri-disaster around once a minute, it may be worth it in certain fights to delay your trance timing in order to make full use of the tri-disaster reset.

Overall, I am pleased with the SMN gameplay at 70 and the job would be even better if they fix the pet responsiveness. Yes, SB SMN is less dot-centric than HW SMN. However, it's not like dot management in HW was difficult considering tri-disaster minimized dot hardcasting to once per minute. Bahamut adds to the complexity of the class because now you have to optimize another phase that only occurs once every 2 minutes (the Bahamut phase) in addition to dreadwyrm trance. Coming into SB, my biggest fear was that SB SMN would be even more braindead than HW SMN, however it seems that SB SMN will require much more fine-tuning in order to achieve the best result for different fights.