casters: what am I missing

Blm main here. Ive been seeing a lot of frustrated blm\\'s switching to smn. What im wondering is how are people that are struggling with blm having an easier time with smn? Personally I find smn far more complex than blm (not even lvl 60 on smn yet). Things smn thinks about: which pet, placement/commands, pet skills, pet related skills (rouse, sustain etc), 3x dot and their timer, aether stacks and how best to use them, cooldowns and more. Blm thinks about: cooldowns, two timers at a time, should I use this proc now/later or not at all, and...? On ps4 and every class ive played ive managed to fit all my skills on crossbar + expanded crossbars. But with smn im maxed out and need to actually swap bars mid combat. Im not asking about which is better. What im asking is how is smn "easier" to perform at their optimum level than say blm? I dont intend on switching mains, but would like to level up smn for options and ease of gearing. Thanks

I think it has to do with the fact that summoners can still deal most of their dps while dodging mechanics i.e. when ever they have to dodge something they can cast Ruin II instead of Ruin I to keep the damage coming in whereas blackmage has to either move and stop casting all together or move and Scathe (which im sure no one does lolololol)

Well, it's highly subjective on what's easier/harder. Personally I don't think SMN is very complex at 60 because it plays highly similar to SMN at 50, which I've been playing for two years. BLM is a different beast at 60 ... not terribly difficult at its core, but much more reflexive to the fight at hand, and much less scripted as you have to adapt and change your rotation on the fly, even if you repeat a fight constantly with the same team you'll be playing different depending on RNG. SMN, you usually do the same thing in any particular fight as you repeat it, more or less.

I'd say SMN would be considered easier because, once you have the base down, you deviate a few things per the fight at hand and then you just follow your script. If you have to change things, it's because you learned of a better way to do the fight. BLM is just always flowing according to its own beat depending on what happens and what targets you, and in some fights that's a lot more complex than what SMN has to deal with.

Really, the biggest difference between SMN and BLM on a dummy is just how many buttons you press with SMN, they're both pretty easy to do well with. It's more buttons but not necessarily any harder or more complex, unless you've got butter fingers I guess. In real fights they're night and day from each other.

Could be the frustration that comes from a dropped Enochian (that may or may not be the BLM's fault). A summoner can't suddenly lose access to his main source of damage for 30 seconds. The summoner might mess up his rotation and/or have to resummon his pet; but that's not a 30 second setback.

SMN got a lot better with expansion, they were any a pretty poor place in fcob, I hardly ever saw them. It's really about the mobility.

FYI there are some decent hotbar swapping macro commands that may help save some space. It's been forever since I've played SMN and can't give you anything specific off the top of my head. You can review the commands in the macro menu, look at the /crosshotbar command and see if you can figure out some abilities that may be able to be swapped on the fly. Ex I have macros for warrior that swap inner beast with fell cleave and steel cyclone with decimate so it uses the same 2 buttons instead of 4 different slots, very nice for controller playing. Here's the thread for reference: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Stance-Dancing

It's kinda funny I just noticed a comment "WAR - discovering SMN macros since 2015.", hopefully you can get some use out of it :)

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Originally Posted by Gooner_iBluAirJGR

blackmage has to either move and stop casting all together or move and Scathe (which im sure no one does lolololol)

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Lol seriously! On the rare occasion that I scathe due to movement I immediately think "whyd I do that" as I stand still locked out by gcd. Im sure its been suggested but making scathe ogcd would solve that.

Ok so basically its not that smn is easier, its that theyre punished less by movement. Makes sense. Practice makes better. Thanks on the quick responses!

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

FYI there are some decent hotbar swapping macro commands that may help save some space. It's been forever since I've played SMN and can't give you anything specific off the top of my head. You can review the commands in the macro menu, look at the /crosshotbar command and see if you can figure out some abilities that may be able to be swapped on the fly. Ex I have macros for warrior that swap inner beast with fell cleave and steel cyclone with decimate so it uses the same 2 buttons instead of 4 different slots, very nice for controller playing. Here's the thread for reference: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Stance-Dancing

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That is deffinitely new news to me! Tyvm ill check it out

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Originally Posted by Muchmidget

Could be the frustration that comes from a dropped Enochian (that may or may not be the BLM's fault). A summoner can't suddenly lose access to his main source of damage for 30 seconds. The summoner might mess up his rotation and/or have to resummon his pet; but that's not a 30 second setback.

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Like BLM though, they do benefit from knowing the fights. Losing your Aethertrail stacks or wasting a Dreadwyrm Trance will happen at first, especially on A1 and A3 savage. What with 3.0 being the patch of "Stuff going untargetable for way too long".

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Originally Posted by Happosai

Lol seriously! On the rare occasion that I scathe due to movement I immediately think "whyd I do that" as I stand still locked out by gcd. Im sure its been suggested but making scathe ogcd would solve that.

Ok so basically its not that smn is easier, its that theyre punished less by movement. Makes sense. Practice makes better. Thanks on the quick responses!

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Agree that even with movement I don't use scathe often (I usually use it if something has a teensy bit of health yet and CBF waiting for cast timer), but making it ogcd wouldn't help that any either - either it would fuck with mana too much and be useless or it would have too long a cooldown to be usable or it would be a straight DPS buff for no real reason.

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Originally Posted by OJ191

Agree that even with movement I don't use scathe often (I usually use it if something has a teensy bit of health yet and CBF waiting for cast timer), but making it ogcd wouldn't help that any either - either it would fuck with mana too much and be useless or it would have too long a cooldown to be usable or it would be a straight DPS buff for no real reason.

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True I never even considered the mana ramifications. Yea its pretty much just a "last mob is almost dead, will be dead before I get a cast off... guess ill use it". Sometimes ill use it on ravana ex when were walking the balls but thats about it. Seriously se do something with scathe, surecast and maybe freeze. The latter two arent even on my crossbar.