Arcanist is weird

I got a friend to try FFXIV and he picked Arcanist as a starting class. He had a lot of questions which really got me thinking about how weird this class is.

He immediately gets access to Summon Carbuncle but it literally does nothing but follow him around. Why does ACN/SMN even have a pet bar at this point?

He can kill things faster by spamming Ruin than using Aethercharge and Summon Ruby. Also Ruby Ruin looks exactly like normal Ruin. It supposedly does fire damage, shouldn't it at least be red or something?


Suggestion: Why not just throw Carbuncle in the rotation like Ifrit/Garuda/Titan? Then replace Summon Ruby with Summon Carbuncle and have it use i dunno, Searing Light, and then Ruby Ruin could be Holy Ruin or something.

I assume they just didn't care cause you're only an Arcanist for a little while but its super unpolished and awkward.

That's kind of a side effect of the SMN rework, a lot of abilities in the rotation at low level are just recolored ruin essentially. it's very weird to play.

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

That's kind of a side effect of the SMN rework, a lot of abilities in the rotation at low level are just recolored ruin essentially. it's very weird to play.

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Not that It changes much at 90

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

That's kind of a side effect of the SMN rework, a lot of abilities in the rotation at low level are just recolored ruin essentially. it's very weird to play.

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The irony to me about that, that in particular, is that it's not like we don't have tons of orange fire ball, purple lighting ball, and CNJ's Stone 1 animation (just do 1 stone instead of 3) that they could have used.

I love new SMN, personally, but I do feel like they missed some easy opportunities there. Even just a slight color tint to each would be nice. Not sure why they didn't do it other than maybe just didn't see it would have much point since you level out of them eventually. But like Fire 1 and Ruin 1 use effectively the same animation, just with a different color. Seems it would have been pretty easy to just do a couple more colors. If they wanted to keep it distinct (not that SCH's Broil II isn't just 4 Fire I's in a trench-coat as it is...), they could have made the core black and just the aura around them red/yellow/green...but whatever.

I think you may want to reread aethercharge. It literally boosts their Ruin damage by 50 potency, so from 240 to 290. In addition Ruby Ruin is 340 potency, which is 100 potency higher than your base Ruin when you exit out of aethercharge.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

I think you may want to reread aethercharge. It literally boosts their Ruin damage by 50 potency, so from 240 to 290.

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Aethercharge proper is a 0p GCD though, so the 50p it adds to each Ruin only nets a total of 10-60p once you account for the lost Ruin. Aethercharge's value is not in what it adds to Ruin but in unlocking the summons, and that value is funny at times, with the values of each element varying wildly over the course of SMN's career.

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Originally Posted by Ggwppino

Not that It changes much at 90

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That's the funny thing, it highlights that the level 90 version is the same just with flashier effects but in essence has no gameplay distinction.
It's like pre-90 SMN is a beta version using placeholder assets.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Aethercharge proper is a 0p GCD though, so the 50p it adds to each Ruin only nets a total of 10-60p once you account for the lost Ruin. Aethercharge's value is not in what it adds to Ruin but in unlocking the summons, and that value is funny at times, with the values of each element varying wildly over the course of SMN's career.

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Except raw numbers from potency value are different than what you get at later levels.

I hop on with my level 34 test summoner, there was only a difference of 40-60 damage per ruin 2, as I was going from 160 to 220 in damage. Which is what you would expect from an ARR ruin.

Meanwhile when I get on my level 90 the difference of averages on 11000, 16000, or 20000 based on whether or not its ruin, bahamut-ruin, or phoenix-ruin. Which is only a difference of 340 to 440 to 540 in potency. Which honestly still looks the same except its just a big number if two extra zeroes are filed off as the ARR example.

The original poster makes it out like its some weird anomaly, when that is just the squished math of ARR.

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Originally Posted by wylantar

I got a friend to try FFXIV and he picked Arcanist as a starting class. He had a lot of questions which really got me thinking about how weird this class is.

He immediately gets access to Summon Carbuncle but it literally does nothing but follow him around. Why does ACN/SMN even have a pet bar at this point?

He can kill things faster by spamming Ruin than using Aethercharge and Summon Ruby. Also Ruby Ruin looks exactly like normal Ruin. It supposedly does fire damage, shouldn't it at least be red or something?


Suggestion: Why not just throw Carbuncle in the rotation like Ifrit/Garuda/Titan? Then replace Summon Ruby with Summon Carbuncle and have it use i dunno, Searing Light, and then Ruby Ruin could be Holy Ruin or something.

I assume they just didn't care cause you're only an Arcanist for a little while but its super unpolished and awkward.

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Yes this actually is the only part of the new Summoner that needed a little work.

Arcanist used to be a pet class. Those Carbuncles used to be actual pets, the Yellow Carby was a tank pet (with provoke), the Red Carby was a mage pet and the Blue Carby was a melee/healer pet. Now that they don't do anything anymore It kinda takes away from pretty much everything the Arcanist was, leaving it little more than a Ruin spamming class with no other function other than that.

This really is where the class needs a little more complexity. Once you get to 60th, it smooths out and plays a little better. Once you get to 70th it starts to finally make sense. but still doesn't really start getting fun to play until 86th level where it becomes a true summoner.

They really need to add extra powers for the Carby on those Enkindle/Deathflare Buttons the way they do at 86th, for the Titan/Garuda/Ifrit powers at 86th, akin to the Slipstream, Mountain Buster, and Crimson Cyclone moves.

The criticisms people have about this class ARE True... but ONLY at pre-86th.

Once you get this thing to 86th level its actually really fun to play and does require some pre-thought and skill. Its just all the things prior to that where the criticisms are true.

They didn't think current SMN through. Everything about it other than the 86 actions are vestiges of what it used to be and either don't fit (Carbuncle) or extremely tenuously fit (Energy Drain and its spenders, including Ruin 4).

They gave it so little thought that they still had Aetherpact tied to Carbuncle when he disappears immediately in their rotation and is gone for 15 sec of Bahamut + 4 sec of whatever you choose next (if not more because you're not 90 and your Egi has to hoof it over to your target) and that it actually got weaker when it went from 79 to 80 and you were forced to use the inferior Firebird until they fixed these when pointed out (you could literally tell both issues just by reading tooltips before the expansion and rework released).

Even now, it loses functionally going from Aethercharge/Dreadwyrm Trance to Summon Bahamut; you could do the other two actions without a target, so you could use them preemptively if there's not anything to attack in range currently, but even that minor complexity gets filed down in case someone might cut themselves on it.

That's not to say that ACN's leveling experience being weird is unique to EW, though. It was weird as hell in ShB too, when Bio 1 did 200 potency over 30 seconds and Miasma did 220, both next to Ruin 1's 180 potency. The difference is that it still had reasons to use DoTs outside of their damage alone (Fester), and as it leveled it got new ways you could apply your DoTs (Bane, Tri disaster, DWT resetting Tri Disaster), so it's core actions actually interacted with its kit instead of just being stapled on like they are now. ACN/SMN leveling got good after 56 in ShB (as opposed to 86 in EW), but it hasn't really made sense since StB.

Today, giving it analogues to its 86 actions early might make it even more dull, though, because then you would get nothing but flashy effects all the way to 90. The job just really doesn't have much going on. It's like they implemented half its rework and said 'that's good enough. We'll do the rest later; don't want to have to make up new stuff for the expansion in a couple years.'