We have finally come full circle, SMN's need help!

Having thought about it again, adding PIE to SMN books would help, at least superficially, however, that doesn't negate the fact the Energy Drain (an oGCD ability that is meant to help in return MP to a SMN on demand) is still a dps loss because it's tied to Aetherflow.


Imo, Energy Drain should have it's Aetherstack requirement removed, and placed on its own CD, separate from Fester. Let Fester be the nuke, and Energy Drain just an oGCD ability akin to Jugulate, Mug, etc.

I spent a couple hours one night talking to the SMN in our static about where SMN currently stands. I can say as a BLM main that SMN definitely feels sort of gimped at the moment. It feels like SMN is almost balanced around having a Foe Rec singing bard in the group whereas a BLM is just going to do some sick DPS with or without one.

My one question I have is if you are saying anything about DPS numbers being too low for a SMN, where are you getting the numbers? From everything I've heard any and all parses on SMN are inaccurate. How inaccurate I don't know but from what I've heard the parsing of dots is an estimate and there are certain things it just doesn't register at all.

I do feel like SMN is slightly less useful than a BLM at this point in coil but at the same time I don't know how much of a buff they would need. I doubt that anything will change with the current classes until expansion. Unless there is some glaring thing brought to SE's attention. It's too close for the jobs to be changing anyways for it to really matter. Yes they would probably benefit from some sort of a buff and it's also probably needed but at the same time where they stand right now isn't in a horrible place either. They're useful, they do solid DPS, and they do offer valuable utility. I don't know of any group that is excluding SMN's at this point.

EDIT: One thing I will point out is that I see a lot of discussion about SMN's having mana issues now with this Final Coil. I'll have to pay more attention but in the past our SMN has NEVER even come close to running out of mana and he's also not holding off on using Ruin 2 or Shadow Flare. I've watched some gameplay videos he's put up and it does look like at times maybe he's not going all out blasting things as hard as possible but at the same time he's always hovering anywhere from 360-400 DPS depending on the turn. How much more DPS does he really need to be doing? It does suck to not be able to just constantly nuke all the time like some jobs but I think part of that is unless you're trying to progress and squeeze that lemon as hard as you can, there's no real need to blast away until your mana starved once you have content on farm. That's usually when my group eases up and starts just worrying about opening chests and hoping for the loot we will never see.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Minorinz

I cleared FCOB as a SMN, I didn't switch to BLM but it still took quite the effort to do so...
It's ok though spellspeed helped!! /sarcasm

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lol, I'm on the verge of getting to clear t13 and I have a load of sps (to be exact 495 sps)...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Orrias

Imo, Energy Drain should have it's Aetherstack requirement removed, and placed on its own CD, separate from Fester. Let Fester be the nuke, and Energy Drain just an oGCD ability akin to Jugulate, Mug, etc.

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That kind of suggestion would directly buff SCH, so I don't think this should be done. Anything that a SCH and SMN share in skill and traits would affect each other, which is why SMN is limited for now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Clarkamite

snip

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Well, I'm not sure if I'm doing any better either, but I do around an average of 410-430 dps in t10-12 (likely low for my ilvl), while my static BLM is doing 460-480 dps. And we both have about equal average ilvl. Most SMN's will energy drain under 1k MP to not go completely oom, but they lose out on a bit of dps because of that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Clarkamite

EDIT: One thing I will point out is that I see a lot of discussion about SMN's having mana issues now with this Final Coil. I'll have to pay more attention but in the past our SMN has NEVER even come close to running out of mana and he's also not holding off on using Ruin 2 or Shadow Flare. I've watched some gameplay videos he's put up and it does look like at times maybe he's not going all out blasting things as hard as possible but at the same time he's always hovering anywhere from 360-400 DPS depending on the turn. How much more DPS does he really need to be doing? It does suck to not be able to just constantly nuke all the time like some jobs but I think part of that is unless you're trying to progress and squeeze that lemon as hard as you can, there's no real need to blast away until your mana starved once you have content on farm. That's usually when my group eases up and starts just worrying about opening chests and hoping for the loot we will never see.

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360-400 is really bad for every turn, no offense to your SMN.

This topic was never about if SMN can complete content, meet enrage timers, kill adds in time, etc. It sure can, especially once your group gets the content in question on farm. The issue is it's just a worse DPS than the others, and in the MMO community it's a legitimate issue when the job you gear up (based on weekly lockouts, no less) and specialize in is not wanted and shunned by people in the know.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

360-400 is really bad for every turn, no offense to your SMN.

This topic was never about if SMN can complete content, meet enrage timers, kill adds in time, etc. It sure can, especially once your group gets the content in question on farm. The issue is it's just a worse DPS than the others, and in the MMO community it's a legitimate issue when the job you gear up (based on weekly lockouts, no less) and specialize in is not wanted and shunned by people in the know.

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Do you mean that those numbers are bad in comparison to other DPS jobs, or bad for a SMN specifically? If it's the latter, knowing gear/ilevel might change that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Clarkamite

I spent a couple hours one night talking to the SMN in our static about where SMN currently stands. I can say as a BLM main that SMN definitely feels sort of gimped at the moment. It feels like SMN is almost balanced around having a Foe Rec singing bard in the group whereas a BLM is just going to do some sick DPS with or without one.My one question I have is if you are saying anything about DPS numbers being too low for a SMN, where are you getting the numbers? From everything I've heard any and all parses on SMN are inaccurate. How inaccurate I don't know but from what I've heard the parsing of dots is an estimate and there are certain things it just doesn't register at all.

I do feel like SMN is slightly less useful than a BLM at this point in coil but at the same time I don't know how much of a buff they would need. I doubt that anything will change with the current classes until expansion. Unless there is some glaring thing brought to SE's attention. It's too close for the jobs to be changing anyways for it to really matter. Yes they would probably benefit from some sort of a buff and it's also probably needed but at the same time where they stand right now isn't in a horrible place either. They're useful, they do solid DPS, and they do offer valuable utility. I don't know of any group that is excluding SMN's at this point.

EDIT: One thing I will point out is that I see a lot of discussion about SMN's having mana issues now with this Final Coil. I'll have to pay more attention but in the past our SMN has NEVER even come close to running out of mana and he's also not holding off on using Ruin 2 or Shadow Flare. I've watched some gameplay videos he's put up and it does look like at times maybe he's not going all out blasting things as hard as possible but at the same time he's always hovering anywhere from 360-400 DPS depending on the turn. How much more DPS does he really need to be doing? It does suck to not be able to just constantly nuke all the time like some jobs but I think part of that is unless you're trying to progress and squeeze that lemon as hard as you can, there's no real need to blast away until your mana starved once you have content on farm. That's usually when my group eases up and starts just worrying about opening chests and hoping for the loot we will never see.

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Bards do anywhere from 400-420 dps in fcob depending on the turn and that's while having to use FoE and Ballad. That's the problem the Summoner's dps is around that of a Bard without any of the utility a Bard brings.

If SE is going to keep the Summoner Dps around that of a Bard they should give us crowd control and utility.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Clarkamite

From everything I've heard any and all parses on SMN are inaccurate. How inaccurate I don't know but from what I've heard the parsing of dots is an estimate and there are certain things it just doesn't register at all

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They certainly aren't 100% accurate due to the way DoT damage is registered in game, but as of recent updates, it's generally within +/-1% of the actual damage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

Do you mean that those numbers are bad in comparison to other DPS jobs, or bad for a SMN specifically? If it's the latter, knowing gear/ilevel might change that.

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Both, I'd imagine. 450-480 is where I'm at on SMN, depending on the Turn. If well-played and in equivalent gear, MNK, DRG, NIN, and BLM would all be close to/exceeding 500. BRD is the only DPS that would be under SMN, but if they have a DRG and Ballad is not needed, BRD would edge out SMN as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Clarkamite

My one question I have is if you are saying anything about DPS numbers being too low for a SMN, where are you getting the numbers? From everything I've heard any and all parses on SMN are inaccurate. How inaccurate I don't know but from what I've heard the parsing of dots is an estimate and there are certain things it just doesn't register at all.

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This was true, like, 9 months ago. Since slightly before SE went all don't ask/don't tell on parsing, parsers have been reading memory to get accurate dot information, which is what used to break SMN parsing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

This was true, like, 9 months ago. Since slightly before SE went all don't ask/don't tell on parsing, parsers have been reading memory to get accurate dot information, which is what used to break SMN parsing.

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ACT had trouble calculating Bio when it was contagioned for the longest time, not sure if this is fixed or not. Regardless this only effected parses with Garuda, Parsing on a test dummy with Ifrit is more ideal and will give you a bigger, possibly inflated DPS number to compare to other classes.

Looking at new Monk vids i125+ with single target numbers in the low 600's (very nice) it shows that the rate at which SMN damage increases is low.

I would attribute it to the stat weights more than gear and/or MP conservation especially against Melee classes.

Given SMN's low Magic Damage weight 6.57 (20-40% lower than other classes) and the rate that secondary stats increase 7-10% per 10 iLvls there is a stat scaling balance issue.

At low iLvl's where the secondary stats started relatively high compared to Weapon/Main stats, SMN did competitively well. But due to the rate that the main stats increase VS secondary stats, and how SMN skill potency was balanced against other classes on release, each update in gear will see a reduced increase in SMN damage.

Comparison to BLM

@ ~3 MD per 10 iLVL's BLM will accelerate past SMN at a Rate of 4 INT per MD. This doesn't include the low Secondary stat gain on SMN, especially Spell Speed.

i135 Weapon
BLM 656 Main Hand value - INT
SMN 539 Main Hand value - INT
Difference 117 INT

i70 Weapon
BLM 504 Main Hand Value - INT
SMN 413 Main Hand Value - INT
Difference 91 INT

The newest set of gear makes this very noticeable due to the amount of Spell Speed on the mage gear and how it scales with Summoner Damage. I haven't done the math but given BLM VS SMN BiS + the difference on scaling with WD/secondary stats we are probably looking at a difference of 40-60 INT. ~10% + on gear alone.

--------------------------------------------------------

I can see why they would take this approach since currently the pet scales off WD and INT at a higher rate than SMN (almost double, but it doesn't scale off Secondary Stats as a trade off) but the lesser increase on secondary stats causes SMN to fall behind. This appears to be an attempt to balance the Ratio of SMN to Pet damage on top of balancing SMN to all other classes.

My only guess to balance this would be to increase the damage scaling of pets from MD/INT (eventually pets will become a high % of overall SMN Damage though)

OR

Boost the weight of secondary stats for summoner - not ideal due to the non-static nature of gear secondary stats

OR

Most ideal IMO - Increase the Weight of MD for SMN and have the pet scale the same as SMN for all stats, including Spell Speed. In order to balance Magic Pets VS Melee pets, have DET scale the same way as it does for Melee and AA Damage.

I.E. - Garuda 2.4 GCD VS Ifrit 2.4 GCD for Flame Crush + DET Bonus for AA Damage, since AA doesn't scale off Spell Speed/Skill Speed
(to prevent SS from being too ideal for the use of Garuda over Ifrit)

This would just make pet damage an extension of the SMN (balanced as Raw Potency) instead of having to balance the pet on top of how the SMN performs. I.E. (A + B = C instead of A + B^2-(D+F))

--------------------------------------------------------

Because of this, I don't think SMN damage is being effected by a single issue.
It appears to be a combination of
- Gear/Stat Weights
- MP Management in long fights

I'm not convinced that MP management is the main issue that is reducing SMN potential over other classes, but rather a by-product of players trying to push every ounce of damage out of it to remain competitive with other classes. (Fester VS Energy Drain is such a miniscule portion of overall damage)

Patching SMN with potency increases will not address the gear scaling issues compared to other classes.
Increasing MP recovery/reducing spell cost will not address the damage difference to other classes approaching ilvl 131

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does this mean that SMN is not good in current endgame content? No. But it does take a highly skilled SMN to push high enough numbers to compete with currently average players of other DPS classes (not including Bard).

Dummy Comparison iLVL 131

Estimated (Edited to bring DPS values to a less simulated amount)

SMN Single Target Damage @ i131 - 525 DPS (390 SMN + 135 PET) - Garuda
Melee 625
BRD 540
BLM 585
--------------------------------

Final Thoughts

Increase Summoner MD weight to around 7.5 - reduce how much the pet is effected by MD and INT and allow them to be effected by secondary stats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

Dummy Comparison iLVL 131

Estimated SMN Single Target Damage @ i131 - 560 DPS (410 SMN + 150 PET) - Garuda

Melee 640 +/- 15 DPS
BRD 560
BLM 620

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I have a "friend" who parses and has i135 BLM and SMN weapons and no, SMN can't get to 560 (assuming a run without every Fester critting and going until 4 minutes) on a dummy without a whole lot of Foe's. BLM also can't even get close to 620 unless you have Foe's + Selene or an amazingly lucky run.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

I have a "friend" who parses and has i135 BLM and SMN weapons and no, SMN can't get to 560 (assuming a run without every Fester critting and going until 4 minutes) on a dummy without a whole lot of Foe's. BLM also can't even get close to 620 unless you have Foe's + Selene or an amazingly lucky run.

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If you don't mind me asking, how much DPS can your "Friend" do with BLM and SMN. Since I'm not i131 yet I was only able to simulate the damage based on what kind of damage I do currently on a Dummy (estimated).

The main point was to represent the growing gap between BLM and SMN (and Melee to a degree) in Single Target Damage. If you could give real world Dummy numbers that would make the comparison even better.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

If you don't mind me asking, how much DPS can your "Friend" do with BLM and SMN. Since I'm not i131 yet I was only able to simulate the damage based on what kind of damage I do currently on a Dummy (estimated).

The main point was to represent the growing gap between BLM and SMN (and Melee to a degree) in Single Target Damage. If you could give real world Dummy numbers that would make the comparison even better.

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My friend on average does about 500-510 around 4 minutes with SMN + Garuda (and is completely dry), and anywhere from 530-570 in the same time frame with BLM. This isn't max iLVL but it's relatively close.

The biggest hit against SMN vs BLM in a dummy (and to a tiny bit lesser extent real fight) scenario is how good Selene is for BLM. Selene is huge ... easily lets my friend do 20-30 more DPS over 4 minutes. SMN gets virtually nothing because those extra Ruins are bad for MP, which carries over to real fights in a negative way (well, not negative, but not good either). Foe's probably benefits SMN more on the opener than BLM, but it's much easier to utilize a second Foe's with BLM over SMN.

Based on the way SE has been balancing the Summoner around other Dps and how they have been changing the stat weights so we have the lowest weights among the Dps (see below) I think they are doing this re balance the Summoner for 3.0. The storyline indicates the Summoner will have greater control over the Primal Essence and even be able to summon Primals in 3.0. If Summoners have greater control over the Primals Essence than the Pet has to make up a higher percentage of total damage than the Summoner. Also with the expansion SE is dropping Classes and Summoner along with all the others will become pure jobs so SE might go the Final Fantasy Tactic route with Summoner giving them more crowd control abilities, raid buffs and debuffs while the Scholar gets all the Arcanist abilities.
It's been a very long time since the weights for each job have been updated and I've noticed a lot of places, such as Ariyala, are still using the out-dated weights. In fact, the last "public" update for weights was 7 months ago, in this thread. I've posted the new weights for the Jobs on the forums, but of course, they're not exactly "easy" to find, seeing as they're all in different, individual threads and not collected in one lovely thread.
So, without further ado, here's the 2.4/2.45 updated Stat-Weights for all DPS jobs, excluding Black Mage. If you want to know anything about the Black Mage, please refer to /u/PuroStriders work, which can be found at his official forum thread.
Dragoon
WD: 9.349
STR: 1.000
DET: 0.327
CRT: 0.233
SS: 0.198
Monk
WD: 9.338
STR: 1.000
DET: 0.336
CRT: 0.214
SS: 0.206
Ninja
WD: 9.132
DEX: 1.000
DET: 0.325
CRT: 0.226
SS: 0.215
DISCLOSURE
The Skillspeed for Ninja was calculated without any latency issues. It's evident that Mudra's, coupled with Latency, delays your GDC by a fair amount. With a good connection, your Mudra's will delay your GDC by 0.5s every 20s or so.
If this applies to you, then the appropriate Skillspeed weight for Ninja is:
SS: 0.201
If you're being delayed by 1 second, it'll be approximately:
SS: 0.19
I will be reworking the Ninja's Skillspeed weight so it's a bit more accurate in the next few weeks.
Bard
WD: 9.429
DEX: 1.000
DET: 0.320
CRT: 0.339
SS: 0.161
Summoner
WD: 6.911
INT: 1.000
DET: 0.284
CRT: 0.232
SS: 0.098
If you have any questions about the methodology used to calculate these stat-weights, ask away and I'll answer. Though, a lot of answers will be answered in that previous thread I linked.
EDIT 1: Added crit for DRG. Ooops.
EDIT 2: Added NIN SS Disclosure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Also with the expansion SE is dropping Classes and Summoner along with all the others will become pure jobs

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Um, could you give a source on that? everything I've heard indicates that the classes we have so far will stay, and it's only the new jobs that will be 'pure' jobs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DarkStar

Um, could you give a source on that? everything I've heard indicates that the classes we have so far will stay, and it's only the new jobs that will be 'pure' jobs.

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I would take anything Akiza says with a literal Dump Truck of Salt.

Discuss seems pretty dead, oh well, I guess, we will see if we get anything decent for 3.0 (or not).
~
Meanwhile http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ck-Mage-Revamp
Kind of obvious when it's producer's job :p

It seems that SMN doesn't worth a little reply from community staffs either. I'm a bit salty to be honest.
Going to leave the thread here,
Merry Christmas to all fellow SMNs :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShinryuReishiki

Both, I'd imagine. 450-480 is where I'm at on SMN, depending on the Turn. If well-played and in equivalent gear, MNK, DRG, NIN, and BLM would all be close to/exceeding 500. BRD is the only DPS that would be under SMN, but if they have a DRG and Ballad is not needed, BRD would edge out SMN as well.

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400 is the highest I've hit, at i113 without a BRD to play Foe's. I have no idea where I'm failing but I see these numbers in the high 400's sometimes and wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

Either way, I'm always the lowest DPS in my raid and thats discouraging, especially considering that I feel like I play more "strategically" on SMN than any other DPS job due to the various tools and resources we have to manage.

Quote:

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~
Meanwhile http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ck-Mage-Revamp
Kind of obvious when it's producer's job :p

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Read the last post in the second page of that thread

With the way stat weights scaling is going for Summoner if SE doesn't revamp the Summoner it will fill the power creep hard in 3.0 when compared to other dps. The issue is a combination of potency, mp management and stat weights. SE can't buff the Summoner without buffing the Scholar since they share the same base class. SE backed themselves into a corner when they decided to branch both Summoner and Scholar off of the same class because they can't change one without affecting the other. The only way to buff the Summoner is to increase the Pet Damage potency and have them scale at 3 times the Magic Damage and Intelligent Damage of the Summoner contributing to higher percentage of Simmoner's total damage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Akiza

With the way stat weights scaling is going for Summoner if SE doesn't revamp the Summoner it will fill the power creep hard in 3.0 when compared to other dps. The issue is a combination of potency, mp management and stat weights. SE can't buff the Summoner without buffing the Scholar since they share the same base class. SE backed themselves into a corner when they decided to branch both Summoner and Scholar off of the same class because they can't change one without affecting the other. The only way to buff the Summoner is to increase the Pet Damage potency and have them scale at 3 times the Magic Damage and Intelligent Damage of the Summoner contributing to higher percentage of Simmoner's total damage.

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I don't think it's a potency issue at all. SMN seems to be falling behind at a rate equivalent to its Magic Damage weight (Secondary stat weights seem ok). SE can easily adjust the Magic Damage Weight of SMN which will not effect SCH at all. SCH's Magic Damage weight is actually higher than Summoners as it is @ 8.7 ish.

Greatly increasing the pet damage would require a large reduction in Summoner AOE/Multi Target in order to balance it's single target damage to other classes. I would say that's not a good trade off.

That WD scale, it's enough to make me cry.

At this point we certainly won't be hearing anything until after the new year at the earliest since I believe the devs are all on holiday til after new years. At least they were this time last year.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

I don't think it's a potency issue at all. SMN seems to be falling behind at a rate equivalent to its Magic Damage weight (Secondary stat weights seem ok). SE can easily adjust the Magic Damage Weight of SMN which will not effect SCH at all. SCH's Magic Damage weight is actually higher than Summoners as it is @ 8.7 ish.

Greatly increasing the pet damage would require a large reduction in Summoner AOE/Multi Target in order to balance it's single target damage to other classes. I would say that's not a good trade off.

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Could you simulate Potency per second as opposed to simulated DPS per second?

If they don't buff Smn in the expansion. I might just make my new main a Machinist.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sparktacus

That WD scale, it's enough to make me cry.

At this point we certainly won't be hearing anything until after the new year at the earliest since I believe the devs are all on holiday til after new years. At least they were this time last year.

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eh, the WD damage scaling being "low" isnt exactly new - casters always have low WD because they have like 81 WD, way more than a melee. It scales slightly worse when you have so much of it.

Smn has utility in that it has a battle rez no other dps class has that it takes pressure off healers from having to rez.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Smn has utility in that it has a battle rez no other dps class has that it takes pressure off healers from having to rez.

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In High raiding SMN res has a very low value, considering their Mana problems. Most healers are able to res and maintain their mana a lot better than SMN will as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zumi

Smn has utility in that it has a battle rez no other dps class has that it takes pressure off healers from having to rez.

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battle rez is only useful for dungeons not end game raids

Battle ress is the worst excuse why summoners dps should be low. Game should be developed by that what is the max potential without making any misstakes. Battle ress have no use if you wanna get world first kills or something like that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sunako

Battle ress is the worst excuse why summoners dps should be low. Game should be developed by that what is the max potential without making any misstakes. Battle ress have no use if you wanna get world first kills or something like that.

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I think it might be interesting if they found a way to make SMN Resurrection cost 0MP and have a ten minute cool down on it. That way SMN would retain that "utility" without hampering their MP effectiveness.

Though, given the stat weights provided earlier, it does feel like the problem is more broad reaching.

1. Increase Aetherflow stacks (Reasoning; after 1.30 mins, you're out of Aetherflow stacks and have just entered the non-competitive zone, if no adds are available to dps in tandum).
   
2. Remove the Aetherflow stack requirement of Energy Drain/ buff the potency of Energy Drain (Reasoning: Long drawn out, 1v1 fights equate to lolSMN, as MP returns are a joke).
   
3. Add PIE to future SMN weapons (Reasoning: Helps somewhat with the MP issue that SMNs have in FCoB).

The issues that SMN faces stem from two abilities -- Aetherflow and Energy Drain. In addtion to this, the fight mechanics in FCoB also compound the issue, as they do not give much leeway for a SMN to play to their fullest, w/o a group overgearing the encounter, in order for MP issues to be hidden where they ordinarily wouldn't be.

You could add more PIE/ MP regen, however, as soon as your initial Aetherflow stacks are burnt burnt through (from the start of a fight), and you need the next Aetherflow stack for a Fester, to maintain competitive dps, and you can't, you're screwed. Aetherflow is also a nuissance, as any buffs it could potentially receive are, under the current Job system, going to be subject to watering down due to it being a ACN ability. (-____-)

Tbh, I think it's too late now. The Dev team is most likely just going to make changes for 3.0, or one of the 3.x patches.

Both of these above suggestions will affect SCH, too, cause they share the same class (ACN) and skills..

Anyways, I already suggested quick-fixes to SMN, like more base PIE and such, but now I'm slowly converting to BLM so I'm pretty much gonna quit SMN until they do something about it.

To be quite honest SE have dug themselves into a corner by having SMN and SCH share a base class in ACN. It's proving far too difficult for them to adjust for one job without screwing over the other. They really just need to separate the two somehow.

SMN mana issues really arent as bad as people make them out to be, I've seen alot of SMNs spam Ruin2 for no reason.
Also its not tons, but auto attack when possible as well, every little helps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

360-400 is really bad for every turn, no offense to your SMN.

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To be fair the numbers I threw out there were from months ago when he was at most i104 in second coil turns. Also, the person who parses in our group doesn't have it stop after any lapses in time. It's all connected. I've said this before in other threads but usually when I see people start throwing out numbers that usually doesn't mean anything to me until I know what their parse's parameters are set to as well as what responsibilities their job has. Parsing near 400 in T7 as a SMN kiting sounds pretty legit if you ask me. Then again, I don't play SMN ever so their numbers also don't mean much when compared to my own.

EDIT: As of today, I was told for at least the first half of the fight (t11) our SMN was maintaining 500 DPS. Again sounds pretty legit to me. No idea what he ended up at. I just ask for my numbers to compare to myself. My only point with any of this was to say that here our SMN is apparently pushing really high DPS and I've seen him several times use a battle rez when people (our bard; twice in the same run today) are dying for no apparent reason. He never seems to be running out of mana. I just don't know what other people are doing compared to him that make them so starved for mana. I'm not criticizing or arguing, just offering perspective from what I see with my group.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sanguisio

SMN mana issues really arent as bad as people make them out to be, I've seen alot of SMNs spam Ruin2 for no reason.
Also its not tons, but auto attack when possible as well, every little helps.

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If you think that SMNs are "spamming" Ruin II for "no reason" then you either don't main SMN or don't play it to its optimal potential.

Yes, cutting out Ruin II (which you normally use to either allow for more auto-attacks or to force a window to use an off-GCD like Fester when you don't need to refresh Bio) is a way to save MP, but the problem is that SMN are lowering their already-low DPS to do so. You could also cut some Shadow Flares out of your rotation or sub an Energy Drain for a Fester or two, but again, you take a hit to maximum DPS.

As it currently stands, SMN have a delicate dance of multi-tasking and resource management that other DPS roles don't have, and we don't have the utility or the raw numbers to make up for it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shizuna

Both of these above suggestions will affect SCH, too, cause they share the same class (ACN) and skills..

Anyways, I already suggested quick-fixes to SMN, like more base PIE and such, but now I'm slowly converting to BLM so I'm pretty much gonna quit SMN until they do something about it.

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Originally Posted by Orrias

1. Increase Aetherflow stacks (Reasoning; after 1.30 mins, you're out of Aetherflow stacks and have just entered the non-competitive zone, if no adds are available to dps in tandum).
   
2. Remove the Aetherflow stack requirement of Energy Drain/ buff the potency of Energy Drain (Reasoning: Long drawn out, 1v1 fights equate to lolSMN, as MP returns are a joke).
   
3. Add PIE to future SMN weapons (Reasoning: Helps somewhat with the MP issue that SMNs have in FCoB).

The issues that SMN faces stem from two abilities -- Aetherflow and Energy Drain. In addtion to this, the fight mechanics in FCoB also compound the issue, as they do not give much leeway for a SMN to play to their fullest, w/o a group overgearing the encounter, in order for MP issues to be hidden where they ordinarily wouldn't be.

You could add more PIE/ MP regen, however, as soon as your initial Aetherflow stacks are burnt through (from the start of a fight), and you need the next Aetherflow stack for a Fester, to maintain competitive dps, and you can't, you're screwed. Aetherflow is also a nuissance, as any buffs it could potentially receive are, under the current Job system, going to be subject to watering down due to it being a ACN ability. (-____-)

Tbh, I think it's too late now. The Dev team is most likely just going to make changes for 3.0, or one of the 3.x patches.

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Using stats to artificially 'solve' the mp issues still does not negate the fact that SMN loses it's spike/nuke early on, in fights, and the wait for Aetherflow's CD is a difference of at least 60 dps, if not more.

Aetherflow is problematic because; (a) it's an ACN ability -- meaning potential buffs/ nerfs must take both SMN & SCH into effect, and (b) our nuke and feeble our emergency mp return ability are linked to it.

An easy fix would be to break the connection fester has with aetherflux, with a 10ish cd, or make it like a bard's bloodletter. This way we buff smn without affecting sch, solving mp issues ( energy drains at will) and maybe gaining the dps we're lacking in the process.

Just going to say, a trend has happens in this thread that is bad, stop using your own dps numbers if they aren't fit to use, if your going to compare low smn dps to high blm dps this thread is pointless. High ends should be compared only. Also don't use your numbers from second coil >_> that means literally nothing, smn was better than blm at 2nd coil in 2.2-2.3. 8 being he exception.