Summoner Needs to be buffed

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Originally Posted by Halfgeeek

SMN is more mobile than RDM, so they shouldn't get on par with RDM IMO, though with these changes I think they will get close.

BLM needs a buff out of the casters.

DNC desperately needs a buff.

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Red mage has more utility. The ability to rez more frequently, a better damage utility, damage reduction + healing buff.

SMN has rez, a damage buff, and a little more mobility.

Rekindle isn’t real utility.

If RDM res twice, it's out of MP.

Mobility tax has to be applied to SMN because it's mobile.
It sucks but you apply it to everyone or to no one.

Physical ranged can't res and barely heals, most agreed in ShB that you take the mobility tax or the cast.
The argument was "If p.Ranged are crazy mobile and deal good damage, what's the point of picking any other jobs?"
If SMN is at the level of RDM, what's the point of picking RDM at all?

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

Mobility tax has to be applied to SMN because it's mobile.
It sucks but you apply it to everyone or to no one.

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see and this here is where this kind of balancing falls apart. if you apply a mobility tax to smn on the level of the physical ranged (which would be totally fair, 1 cast a minute or whatever is no reason to deal more damage, especially if you can rezz) than literally no one will want smn. if however you buff smn to at least close to redmage levels than physical ranged have every right to ask why they are punished for their mobility while smn gets the ability to rezz on top of superior damage.

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Originally Posted by Akiudo

see and this here is where this kind of balancing falls apart. if you apply a mobility tax to smn on the level of the physical ranged (which would be totally fair, 1 cast a minute or whatever is no reason to deal more damage, especially if you can rezz) than literally no one will want smn. if however you buff smn to at least close to redmage levels than physical ranged have every right to ask why they are punished for their mobility while smn gets the ability to rezz on top of superior damage.

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The easy answer is to give SMN casts once again.
Best answer is to completely remove that "tax".

And if SQEX absolutely wants to avoid double ranged, they can simply limit party of 8 to 1 physical range. Though LB generation for example.
I can safely say most raiders just don't agree with the mobility tax.

SMN has utility between RDM and BLM and as such should be inbetween them DPS wise as well, that's their design ethos anyways, hopefully we see a few small nudges in that direction, today's patch was already a good start putting them just below RDM

A simple change, but i'm happy.

The Summoning Worked!

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Originally Posted by Akiudo

see and this here is where this kind of balancing falls apart. if you apply a mobility tax to smn on the level of the physical ranged (which would be totally fair, 1 cast a minute or whatever is no reason to deal more damage, especially if you can rezz) than literally no one will want smn. if however you buff smn to at least close to redmage levels than physical ranged have every right to ask why they are punished for their mobility while smn gets the ability to rezz on top of superior damage.

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It's almost as if arbitrarily diving the DPS role into sub-roles based on damage type (which does not even make any mechanical difference anymore) and then trying to force groups to fill party slots with one of each type, was not very helpful for good balance and job design.

Ahhh SMN, a class that has started out weak every single expansion, until they randomly turned the class into a physical ranged class (still have physick for some dumb reason) that does less damage than a Bard and significantly less than a caster with insta rez and more utility. WHAT. IS. THIS. DESIGN. PHILOSOPHY

How about this Square, stop giving summoner's random heals that are never up when you need them to begin with (phoenix regen is usually regening people already at full health 99% of the time so literally contributing nothing), and buff the damage

I hate the mobility argument so damn much. Yes, smn doesn't have as many casts but that doesn't mean it should be so far behind rdm, who is so much better in utility. Guess I should be punished and kicked out of parties for a rdm just back I can move more :-/ I hate anyone who makes this asinine argument. Personally, I just want to be on the same level as rdm in dps. I don't want parties to have to ask the question "should we take a smn or rdm? Well, rdm is better because it has better dam and utility." I dont think that to much to ask for in terms of balancing the jobs.

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Originally Posted by jadeblade

I have bad news for you they will never buff SMN enough to surpass RDM, rdm rotation is harder so higher dps is warranted.

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And this is why reaper does the most damage in the game? Because it's massive wrinkle brain rotation deserves it?

Until the developers come out and say that summoner is now paying the “ranged tax”, people need to stop assuming that’s what’s happening. Summoner still has cast times, it’s just retaken the spot for the most mobile caster.

Rotation complexity also has nothing to do with how strong a job was. That’s terrible game balance. That just discourages people from playing anything except for the highest performing jobs.

I think the biggest issue with the job outside of adding a little more depth, is locking utility in certain phases. It feels bad that I can’t use my damage utility or personal shield if I have bahamut or phoenix out. Likewise having a “healing utility” if you can call it that locked into a 15 second window is really dumb, and shouldn’t even count as utility.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

Until the developers come out and say that summoner is now paying the “ranged tax”, people need to stop assuming that’s what’s happening. Summoner still has cast times, it’s just retaken the spot for the most mobile caster.

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"SMN still has casts", go play SMN 1 minute against a dummy and say that again.
That's like stepping in a puddle and saying you jumped in the swimming pool.

Ranged tax was never mentionned, sure people assume things but considering the most mobile job gets lesser damage, it's very easy to draw the line.
If SMN is buffed, all ranged must remain at SMN sides. You can't have one hard job and one easy job getting the same rewards.

But currently, the tax is certainly too high.

Looks some people are going to be seething now that we are pretty close to RDM after the buff. Right where we are supposed to be. :)

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

"SMN still has casts", go play SMN 1 minute against a dummy and say that again.
That's like stepping in a puddle and saying you jumped in the swimming pool.

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Ok. "Summoner still has casts"

About 4 per minute normally (3 of which are extra long, though you can negate 1 with swiftcast if you don't mind effectively giving up rez), except to line up Searing Light you'll have to hold DWT every 2 minutes, which in practical terms translates to more ruin 3 hardcasts. And then of course there's the melee restrictions on some.

Yes, it's highly mobile. But let's not pretend SMN is a physical ranged. There's a difference between a very mobile caster, and the classes which never ever have cast times and never ever have melee restrictions.

You ever thought the reason phy range has low dam is because two out of the three are heavy on party utility. Brd and DNC have consistent buffs for either the whole party or for one person. You can argue mch should be higher in dps, which I do think mch needs to be higher but it could be where its at because of tactician. I really don't know why you are so against smn getting a slight buff so they are on par with rdm. As it stands there is no reason to take an smn over an rdm and your argument isn't helping that. :-/ Do I wish smn had more casts sure but I don't want to be punished for enjoying a job? Shoot I like to play both smn and rdm in my static but I basely been locked into smn bc rpr was taken and rdm was taken. I really don't have a choice but that is just me.

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Originally Posted by MrJPtheAssassin

You ever thought the reason phy range has low dam is because two out of the three are heavy on party utility. Brd and DNC have consistent buffs for either the whole party or for one person. You can argue mch should be higher in dps, which I do think mch needs to be higher but it could be where its at because of tactician. I really don't know why you are so against smn getting a slight buff so they are on par with rdm. As it stands there is no reason to take an smn over an rdm and your argument isn't helping that. :-/ Do I wish smn had more casts sure but I don't want to be punished for enjoying a job? Shoot I like to play both smn and rdm in my static but I basely been locked into smn bc rpr was taken and rdm was taken. I really don't have a choice but that is just me.

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Damage-increasing party buffs are already accounted for in rDPS. Dancer and Machinist are still terrible... even in rDPS (i.e., when accounting for all the damage they give to others).

That leaves their low performance explainable only by "fees" for...

• Troubadour, Tactician, and Shield Samba,
• Nature's Minne, Improvisation, and Curing Waltz,
• being considered easier to play, be that due to among the simplest rotations (MCH especially) or their hypermobility,

and/or

• presently poor tuning.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

"SMN still has casts", go play SMN 1 minute against a dummy and say that again.
That's like stepping in a puddle and saying you jumped in the swimming pool.

Ranged tax was never mentionned, sure people assume things but considering the most mobile job gets lesser damage, it's very easy to draw the line.
If SMN is buffed, all ranged must remain at SMN sides. You can't have one hard job and one easy job getting the same rewards.

But currently, the tax is certainly too high.

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3 casts per minute is still more than any of the ranged DPS.

This would have been something that they had mentioned during the live letter pre endwalker when they were talking about the overhaul.

The job designers like their neat boxes too much to have a caster that is just a physical ranged without the title. This is even more apparent with their two shield healers + 2 pure healers.

Summoner also just got a fairly substantial DPS buff in the raid patch. Numbers are likely fairly close with red mage being slightly on top.

That being said, red mage is the better raid job right now. It brings more to the table:

1.) Slightly better damage
2.) A better DPS utility
3.) Faster rez
4.) Party damage reduction + bonus healing

I can't seriously take anyone saying that 3 casts is a burden.
Especially when BLM is considered a very mobile job.
You have the control of when your casting phase will be and can swiftcast slipstream.

I'm not against a SMN buff, mobility tax is nothing but a massive joke that.
However, it has to come with a PLD and Physical ranged buff.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Damage-increasing party buffs are already accounted for in rDPS. Dancer and Machinist are still terrible... even in rDPS (i.e., when accounting for all the damage they give to others).

That leaves their low performance explainable only by "fees" for...

• Troubadour, Tactician, and Shield Samba,
• Nature's Minne, Improvisation, and Curing Waltz,
• being considered easier to play, be that due to among the simplest rotations (MCH especially) or their hypermobility,

and/or

• presently poor tuning.

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I agree on all points. Since reaper is currently the strongest dps job in the game, and is in my opinion the second easiest dps job in the game to play after summoner, difficulty obviously isn't part of balance philosophy. The fastest job in this game plays at like 45 apm, which is 15 button presses slower than the average wow job. Nothing in FFXIV is rocket surgery or brain science, it's all just muscle memory and slow but deliberate decision making.

Even if difficulty were somehow part of the equation, unless SE thinks that every single person who plays the game is going to 100 parse every single fight, it's a useless metric.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

I can't seriously take anyone saying that 3 casts is a burden.
Especially when BLM is considered a very mobile job.
You have the control of when your casting phase will be and can swiftcast slipstream.

I'm not against a SMN buff, mobility tax is nothing but a massive joke that.
However, it has to come with a PLD and Physical ranged buff.

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We are not saying that a bunch of casts are an inssurmountable burden, we are saying it's stupid to act like SMN belong to the phys ranged category just because its rotation it's not casts all the time. Even if you have only a bunch of casts, you still take more decisions regarding your movement and position than a phys ranged, esepcially considering Ifrit's melee range

If you have to downplay the limitations that SMN has to prove your point, then your point is flawed to begin with.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

I'm not against a SMN buff, mobility tax is nothing but a massive joke that.
However, it has to come with a PLD and Physical ranged buff.

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I don't think anyone here would disagree with across the board buffs for those jobs along with Summoner.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Damage-increasing party buffs are already accounted for in rDPS. Dancer and Machinist are still terrible... even in rDPS (i.e., when accounting for all the damage they give to others).

That leaves their low performance explainable only by "fees" for...

• Troubadour, Tactician, and Shield Samba,
• Nature's Minne, Improvisation, and Curing Waltz,
• being considered easier to play, be that due to among the simplest rotations (MCH especially) or their hypermobility,

and/or

• presently poor tuning.

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Honestly, I really don't understand your point. Most due to the fact I'm just tired of this argument of "SMN belongs with phy range bc its easy/mobility" I don't care if smn out dps rdms, I just think rdm and smn should to be more on par with each other. If you compare them they off about the same buffs but rdm does have more freedom with rezzing and utility. but smn is the one being punished just back of this dumb rework and under tuning. I just don't want to be put in the pos to choice to between rdm and smn or get kicked of groups bc I don't like playing rdm. Between here and the balance discord I feel smn is the red-headed stepchild of the community and hate it so much. Feel like everyone is against giving smn a small buff and keeping it down. Might as well just delete the job all together in 7.0 :-/

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Originally Posted by MrJPtheAssassin

Honestly, I really don't understand your point. Most due to the fact I'm just tired of this argument of "SMN belongs with phy range bc its easy/mobility" I don't care if smn out dps rdms, I just think rdm and smn should to be more on par with each other. If you compare them they off about the same buffs but rdm does have more freedom with rezzing and utility. but smn is the one being punished just back of this dumb rework and under tuning. I just don't want to be put in the pos to choice to between rdm and smn or get kicked of groups bc I don't like playing rdm. Between here and the balance discord I feel smn is the red-headed stepchild of the community and hate it so much. Feel like everyone is against giving smn a small buff and keeping it down. Might as well just delete the job all together in 7.0 :-/

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Shurrikhan is talking about physical ranged and how instead of there being a tax for having a single role utility and piddly heals, the jobs are just under tuned. He didn't say anything about summoner at all here. Summoner does the same damage as red mage after the phoenix buff in 6.05. It has 25% representation among casters in Savage right now, with three times more clears than black mage. What more do you want here? At least you aren't competing with bard as dancer or machinist, where bard has 95% playrate because of how bad the other jobs in the role are.

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Originally Posted by MrJPtheAssassin

Honestly, I really don't understand your point. Most due to the fact I'm just tired of this argument of "SMN belongs with phy range bc its easy/mobility" I don't care if smn out dps rdms, I just think rdm and smn should to be more on par with each other. If you compare them they off about the same buffs but rdm does have more freedom with rezzing and utility. but smn is the one being punished just back of this dumb rework and under tuning. I just don't want to be put in the pos to choice to between rdm and smn or get kicked of groups bc I don't like playing rdm. Between here and the balance discord I feel smn is the red-headed stepchild of the community and hate it so much. Feel like everyone is against giving smn a small buff and keeping it down. Might as well just delete the job all together in 7.0 :-/

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You made the claim that "the reason phy range has low dam is because two out of the three are heavy on party utility." The problem with that claim is that two out of three Physical Ranged have low rDPS (raid DPS, which is damage dealt plus bonus damage given minus bonus damage received) as well, not just low aDPS or raw DPS. To put it another way, most of that utility is already accounted for in that still-low ranking.

If I were talking about Summoner, the word "Summoner", or any variant thereof, would appear in the post. I critiqued your explanation for Physical Ranged jobs' (especially, the two non-Bards therein) low performance -- nothing more. Unless the likes of Tactician, by itself, warrants such a huge damage gap (yes, even in the sense of rDPS), that reason cannot hold water.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

You made the claim that "the reason phy range has low dam is because two out of the three are heavy on party utility." The problem with that claim is that two out of three Physical Ranged have low rDPS (raid DPS, which is damage dealt plus bonus damage given minus bonus damage received) as well, not just low aDPS or raw DPS. To put it another way, most of that utility is already accounted for in that still-low ranking.

If I were talking about Summoner, the word "Summoner", or any variant thereof, would appear in the post. I critiqued your explanation for Physical Ranged jobs' (especially, the two non-Bards therein) low performance -- nothing more. Unless the likes of Tactician, by itself, warrants such a huge damage gap (yes, even in the sense of rDPS), that reason cannot hold water.

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Listen my reply was mostly to this whole thread. The reason I said I didn't understand your post because is that I'm tired of all the arguments that is involving phy range and smn, my brain was melting yesterday from reading all these dumb posts. Nothing aginst you and your post personally. So really didnt need the explanation. I even put that in my replay "Most due to the fact I'm just tired of this argument of "SMN belongs with phy range bc its easy/mobility""

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Originally Posted by Nyarlha

Looks some people are going to be seething now that we are pretty close to RDM after the buff. Right where we are supposed to be. :)

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Yup, although still I think we SMn are too low. I feel as RDM should be the lowest caster because it has all the same utility and mobility but also has dual cast. Which can be used whenever vs swiftcast every 60sec.

They need to ether just put aetherflow stacks to the axe on SMN. Just leave fester and painflaire as 10-15 sec oGCD abilities. If they wanna keep aetherflow stacks then use that to generate the summons or when using a summon you get an aetherflow stack and at 3 stacks it lets you use bahamut/pheonix demis.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

The heals are honestly kinda meh since they're tied to Phoenix, I mean are you going to hold Phoenix until healing is '' needed ''?
It's not like the Reaper shield that can just be used on demand.

I dunno if we should count a self shield either.

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agree, the phoenix healing us actually useless (just remove it), and give us a tick mire dps.., so atleast Rdm (with lots of utility), isnt still ahead of us

... Smn used to be high dps with little utility (compared to other casters & melee)
... now its low dps with little utility :/ (did Yoshi wanna play safe, since im the last Smn changes, he overshot the Smn dps?? .. so we will expect a Smn buff in the future?)

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Originally Posted by TiF

Yup, although still I think we SMn are too low. I feel as RDM should be the lowest caster because it has all the same utility and mobility but also has dual cast. Which can be used whenever vs swiftcast every 60sec.

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If you think SMN, which only has three casts every minute, has less mobility than anything that isn't a Machinist, Bard, or Dancer, you're having a laugh mate.

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Originally Posted by Shiroe

agree, the phoenix healing us actually useless (just remove it), and give us a tick mire dps.., so atleast Rdm (with lots of utility), isnt still ahead of us

... Smn used to be high dps with little utility (compared to other casters & melee)
... now its low dps with little utility :/ (did Yoshi wanna play safe, since im the last Smn changes, he overshot the Smn dps?? .. so we will expect a Smn buff in the future?)

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My read on it is they are waiting until they have more numbers to make a decision. They band-aided SMN with a small boost to Phoenix and then will look to feedback and savage numbers. Its likely rotational changes will be implemeted in 6.1 - but this should be caveated with that any change is not going to be ground breaking, so we may find thats its only a change to the mechanics of how the arcanum summons work. Which also will change the potencies of those attacks.

I think arguing over mobility and utility and the like to justify where smn should sit its a pointless endevour. Not a single one of us knows where it shoudl really fit because we dont know the matrix they use for balance beyond More utility = less dps. There is no way of knowing if the Physical ranged dps is lower due to mobility, or due to the utility they have because there is no metric to apply to each skill.

What we can say is that Rotational changes are required as the overwhelming sentiment from the summoner threads is that the job is a little too simple. I see that from those who like and those who hate the rework.

In any case. Hopefully changes will come and the job will improve.

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Originally Posted by MrJPtheAssassin

Listen my reply was mostly to this whole thread. The reason I said I didn't understand your post because is that I'm tired of all the arguments that is involving phy range and smn, my brain was melting yesterday from reading all these dumb posts. Nothing aginst you and your post personally. So really didnt need the explanation. I even put that in my replay "Most due to the fact I'm just tired of this argument of "SMN belongs with phy range bc its easy/mobility""

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It... does, though, so long as casts (or, more importantly, the mobility conflicts they'd cause) are the primary criteria. By portion of mobility conflicts, SMN belongs nearer to Physical Ranged than to RDM, let alone BLM.

SMN casts less than 13% of the time, and can bank those casts to be used away from necessary movement (creating next to zero mobility conflicts, whereas the likes of RDM have to rely on fortuitous timing, Swiftcast, or a held [temporarily wasted] Acceleration, for a sum of 2 delays available per minute without burning gauge and potentially delaying rotation away from buff sync).

Cast times and mobility conflicts cannot significantly be what separates Summoner's performance from that of Physical Ranged. So, unless the likes of Tactician, by itself, is somehow seen as worth some 3% rDPS more than all of Summoner's utility combined and Bard is simply overtuned at the moment, Summoner and RDM should be nearer to Physical Ranged.

Either specific utility, the other difference between Casters and Rangers, explains the gap --strange explanation though it would be-- or the situation is not yet correctly tuned for Physical Ranged and you should probably stop telling them that they're fine.

:: Hopefully all this is simply a matter of XIV refusing to do potency nerfs and therefore being afraid of overbuffing jobs right now, but for that same reason it also makes little sense to tell other underperforming jobs that they deserve to be there -- be that "per tradition" or whatever other criteria that can't be applied evenly to the currently better-performing jobs. I do think SMN should have nearly the rDPS of RDM, if only because its noticeably greater mobility hasn't amounted to all that much in most among recent raid designs and it has faintly, faintly less utility. As the likes of Dancer and especially Machinist have even less utility, though, their gap should likewise be far smaller, under similar logic.

Tl;dr: If anyone seemed at all miffed, it's only because in the same thread you asked for buffs to job A, you also kind of off-handedly told all jobs there-below that they deserve their place while ignoring what little criteria, in practice, actually sets them apart.

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Originally Posted by Gruntler

If you think SMN, which only has three casts every minute, has less mobility than anything that isn't a Machinist, Bard, or Dancer, you're having a laugh mate.

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Never said less mobility. If I recall I said same as rdm. Only difference is RDM utility is way better. Folks be acting like other classes don't have mobility. The only caster who isn't mobile is BLM.

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Originally Posted by TiF

Never said less mobility. If I recall I said same as rdm. Only difference is RDM utility is way better. Folks be acting like other classes don't have mobility. The only caster who isn't mobile is BLM.

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Even black mage is pretty mobile compared to healers. BLM being a turret hasn't been a thing for a loooong time. At least, not compared to ARR and so on.

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Originally Posted by TiF

Never said less mobility. If I recall I said same as rdm. Only difference is RDM utility is way better. Folks be acting like other classes don't have mobility. The only caster who isn't mobile is BLM.

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SMN is literally 3 casts per minute less mobile than the ranged. You didn't say it, I did. What you said was that something with considerably more than three casts per minute is somehow equally as mobile as something with only 3 casts per minute. This, of course, is objectively wrong.

BLM (and to a lesser extent RDM) need to plan their tools around the fight so they have access to their mobility as they need. And, in the cast of RDM, you need to make sure your opener is tight and GCD timing is in synch with the fight if you don't want to have your ogcds drift because you used swiftcast to move and made everything come up midcast.

Summoner needs to... just not use those moments to cast the one slipstream, the one hardcast ruby rite, or the one ruin 3 they need to cast in their rotation.

SMN mobility is literally handed to you on a silver platter and you pretty much have to work NOT to have access to it.

The fact that you DIDN'T say that it has only slightly less mobility than a ranged thing is the problem.

On the topic of the casting situation, I feel like it wouldn't be uncalled for if Garuda's stance were converted into cast times. As it stands, each summon phase has a clear identity:

- Ifrit is long casts with high damage
- Titan is instant cast and mobile
- Garuda is a short GCD timer

I don't really feel like Garuda needs to be instant cast in order for her value to shine, and it would give Titan's mobility a more clear advantage at all levels. As it stands, Titan is just slower Garuda prior to obtaining their astral flows at level 86.

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Originally Posted by Gruntler

If you think SMN, which only has three casts every minute, has less mobility than anything that isn't a Machinist, Bard, or Dancer, you're having a laugh mate.

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I played both Summoner and Dancer in the new savage raids and cleared one with each so far. Now playing as dancer in P3S, trying to clear.

100% can tell you that summoner is nowhere near as mobile as a dancer that does not have cast time abilities at all... I don't even know how this class has been listed here, these jobs have very different mechanics.

Casting my dance steps while I move will not break the chain of the cast. However, summoner loses a spell if there is a change in the scenario that does not allows you to stay close to the boss and cast the Crimson Strike (430 potency) after Crimson Cyclone. Or Summoner loses uptime if the summoner wants to wait to actually cast it...

Dancer will only lose potency or uptime if they are messing up their cast, with too early casts or miss click of the buttons... or if they dont know how to use dash to keep potency between mechanics to facilitate uptime of the dances dmg.

But I agree that Summoner is quite mobile compared to some other classes. Personally i dont mind being immobile. At the moment it feels like i cant decide if I am supposed to be a spell spammer replacement of red mage or a very low budget black mage with Ifrit. If they fix Ifrit I will be happy.

For me DNC's mobility lies mostly with En Avant. Having three charges of an on demand forward dash is so freeing that it makes it hard to switch to other ranged classes after using it.

SMN may have a good amount of instant spells but the lack of any movement abilities (besides Ifrit's one charge per cycle) means it's not even CLOSE to the mobility of those classes.

As a DNC being caught in a bad position during a mechanic is often just a single dash to safety all while maintaining constant dps.

SMN gets caught out you either sprint if it's up and hope, or sit there and hope your tiny self shield can eat it and take the vuln stack.

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Originally Posted by Maxilor

For me DNC's mobility lies mostly with En Avant. Having three charges of an on demand forward dash is so freeing that it makes it hard to switch to other ranged classes after using it.

SMN may have a good amount of instant spells but the lack of any movement abilities (besides Ifrit's one charge per cycle) means it's not even CLOSE to the mobility of those classes.

As a DNC being caught in a bad position during a mechanic is often just a single dash to safety all while maintaining constant dps.

SMN gets caught out you either sprint if it's up and hope, or sit there and hope your tiny self shield can eat it and take the vuln stack.

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By that logic that means machinist and bard aren’t mobile?

Samurai has more casts than summoner. Samurai is the 4th caster clearly