SMN is now the least popular caster again barely one expansion after its rework

So yeahhhhhhh SMN is now a distant last in popularity amongst the casters with every other Carter having near twice the amount of clears and RDM having almost 4 times the clears (it’s even the least popular in casual dungeons and in the alliance raid)

Is this a sign that the rework was a failure? Or that reworks based on popularity aren’t always the most important thing?

How do they justify SMN’s changes as good in the longer term if all it took was one new caster and a few balance changes to send it to the bottom again

The developers always protect themselves by buffing most jobs they release or rework. SMN was strong and popular in Endwalker, and that was no coincidence. BLM got unpopular changes? Just push it to the top of the charts again while PCT gets deleted. More people play the job, so they consider the changes a success. Meanwhile, the veteran player count drops.

What bothers me the most is MCH's terrible state for three consecutive expansions without any action taken from SE. Things could always get worse for SMN.

RDM was very popular in Stormblood. That didn't really last once the popularity wore off. Over time, I stopped seeing them much.

SMN was obviously very popular in Endwalker given the rework and its simplicity.

I think what has changed now is obviously the release of PCT, which is now popular instead as of Dawntrail. I'm also seeing A LOT of BLMs since its rework compared to immediately prior, suggesting that people like that it's simpler now and are playing it more. Every dungeon, alliance raid, are being filled with BLMs now, and I've been doing Mentor Roulette as a BLM too. I'm seeing us as double BLM in many dungeons, it's crazy!

I think what went wrong with SMN was just adding a summon that wasn't an exciting addition and just makes the rotation slightly annoying more than anything, so it's lost out on the excitement factor compared to PCT being new, BLM being reworked, and RDM even has lots of extra (fixed) procs added that make it more busy than it was. If they'd added Ramuh, Shiva and Leviathan maybe it would be a different story.

There will always be a "least popular" given jobs such as MNK and BLM have held that position. Especially within the same role. I think a good example is BRD, which hasn't fundamentally changed what actual buttons you're pressing much since Stormblood, just their underlying function, yet it became less popular after DNC relased and MCH was reworked. It wasn't that BRD was fundamentally that different in what you press, but now there were these other two enticing jobs in the same category to take a huge chunk of the popularity.

There will always be a least popular job, that nobody can deny. My point was kinda “if we keep reworking jobs based on what’s the least popular then are we ever going to get anywhere other than just pissing off old veterans of the jobs” considering SMN is already so unpopular again and even PCT is feeling the pain of these changes crashing its play rate

Shouldn’t jobs be changed and added to based on what they need and what their players want, not this constant roulette of which job is least popular; especially since RDM is now the most popular caster in high end content and it didn’t do anything, the other three just kept shooting themselves in the foot

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

How do they justify SMN’s changes as good in the longer term if all it took was one new caster and a few balance changes to send it to the bottom again

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This is the issue with butchering jobs to appeal to the lowest common denominator. You're alienating the people who genuinely loved the job to cater to a crowd that is transient by nature. They move to whatever job is flavor of the month while the former diehard mains of that job are driven away from the game. In the long run it's a net negative.

The funny thing is a very similar scenario to this has already played out in WoW. The devs responded to much of the same feedback you see in this community about button bloat and whatnot by pruning all the classes to almost nothing, which was a very miserable and not fun era. It took years of complaints but they eventually realized they were listening to bad feedback and reversed course. SE seems to have made a similar realization when it comes to the boss design so hopefully they're thinking the same thing about the jobs leading up to 8.0, but I can't say the job design decisions in Dawntrail have given me much hope in that regard.

it just needs a new colored dragon.

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Originally Posted by Astronema

it just needs a new colored dragon.

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There exist enough bahamuts throughout the FF franchise that you could make summoner use exclusively the different versions of bahamut

I think we know what needs to be done here

Neo Bahamut in red, and Bahamut Zero in silver, and Bahamut Blast in green

that aside, I don't know what can be done to summoner to make it more appealing
I think if they leaned in more on the elemental aspect that would be nice
I've mentioned it before, and I'll probably butcher it again if I try, but having 3 summons for astral and 3 for umbral would be nice

Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Shiva, Ramuh, Leviathan
Those should really be the summons we have, and they can alternate depending on whether you are under astral or umbral trance

Two of the big summons could even be light and dark to really round things out

That might be a step in the right direction
Because for a job called Summoner, there's a distinct lack of summons you control

but I do understand the point you're making
I think reworking based on popularity can be a double edged sword, and really needs to be handled carefully

Will red mage eventually fall off once people are more used to these new fights and don't need the dualcast revive? That's what I wonder, and if it leads to that jobs popularity during times like this

I personally love RDM and that reason makes it a lot of fun to help others

My soft mashed potato brain doesn't understand everything about clears and stuff, but maybe this is a sign that SMN needs a bit...more to it in order for to be popular in that sort of content again? xD