Can someone give me an in-depth explanation why Summoner is arguably the worst DPS?

I've been looking around the net an I've been getting a lot of mixed messages. Posts about Summoner being top DPS and posts about Summoner being subpar. I've even seen posts about people kicking Summoner because of said DPS.

Can anyone explain why?

They are fine lol. I disunderstand the gracious amount of issues with SMNs. It stemed from FCoB Mana issues and choosing BLMs over them, but some fights favor other classes. Most of the complaints I feel aren't from people in final coil lol. Many groups are successful with SMNs in their groups in final coil.

Basically:
1.) if SMNs do not use Energy Drain and use our stacks for strictly Festers,I think we can last 3 minutes and 30 seconds to about 4 minutes I believe without Mage's Ballad while other DPS jobs, excluding BLM, can go 4 minutes plus without the use of Army's Paeon. In a typical endgame static, there are 2 DoWs and 2 DoMs or 3 DoWs and 1 DoMs when it comes to DPSs. Out of these two setups, Army's Paeon is better to use instead of Ballad since it would always affect more players. There is no point in playing Ballad if only your SMN needs MP. You'll be better off playing Foes or Paeon if the static is composed of 3 DoWs.

2.) Our battle raise is completely worthless when it comes to the FCoB or any content, in my opinion. If you have someone die in the FCoB, you might as well reset the fight. The rez order always go SCH>WHM>SMN. If people are dying so fast that it comes to the SMN to rez then there is a serious issue and not to mention the massive drain it is to our mp and waste of a swiftcast. Granted the utility of supervirus and the shorter cd on "Eye for an Eye" is great and all, it is hardly fight saving.

3.) The FcoB has adds...tons and tons of adds. We have to use another aetherflow stack on Bane and even more mp on setting DoTs on these adds. BLM can easily use AoEs without any real cost to their DPS, it's their specialty after all.

4.) GOD THE SPELL SPEED @.@... Such a useless stat for SMNs. No matter how minor the DPS change there is from secondary stats, it is a wasted stat for us. Not to mention the amount of MP bleed it results in when we have too much ruin spam and us messing up DoTs recasts.

I think I covered the main concerns of endgame SMNs but I am probably forgetting some.

BTW this is coming from an ex endgame SMN and raider....I can't find a new static T____T

p.s.: sorry for all the typos and grammar mistakes, it's like 5AM right now and I'm sleepy

EDIT: I forgot to include #4

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Originally Posted by Skeith-Adeline

Most of the complaints I feel aren't from people in final coil lol. Many groups are successful with SMNs in their groups in final coil.

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That's right. my dpses in FCOB are (with 120WP) : T10 430, T11 400 (Cube with Ifrit, cause our static has blm and smn), T12 430 (handling bluefire)
i think those dpses are enough to clear for FCOB though i didnt cleard t13 yet.
but, melee is specialized in one target and caster stronger than melee in AOE in almost MMOs.
compare to another caster;BLM, my static's BLM show that more dps than mine 15~20+ though we have similar gears.
besides, my MP was drained out in 5min without energy drain, cause FCOB have many adds except for t11.
so now there aren't certain reason to play SMN, exclude only playing SMN player like me.

Then your BLM is alright, but not super great. A good BLM will easily get 500 DPS on both T10 and 11. On T12 a good BLM will get 480+. And on T13 on my BLM I push 460 DPS (unmerged with a lvl 120 weapon).
Most of the complains that come from people who clear content are legitimate and are blindly disregarded by Skeith, so it would seem. There literally have been 30+ treats by now discussing the summoner issues.
One of the biggest issue is the MP drainage and being punishing for being a good Summoner. The second issue is that the damage is not sustained at all, especially as the fight drags on. Summoner DPS drops and drops and there is no real way to get it back up, even with Fester. Third issue is that the gear is not optimized for Summoner.
Skeith is full of shit because I know at least three servers where Summoner usage has been falling like snow in Christmas.

Summoner should still have HIGHER ST DPS than BLM. It should be better than BLM on T10 and 11. BLM should reign supreme on T12 and 13. Right now BLM is better on EVERY fight. How people can claim there are no issues is just beyond me.

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Originally Posted by ViviAnimus

Then your BLM is alright, but not super great. A good BLM will easily get 500 DPS on both T10 and 11. On T12 a good BLM will get 480+. And on T13 on my BLM I push 460 DPS (unmerged with a lvl 120 weapon).
Summoner should still have HIGHER ST DPS than BLM.

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i agreed all your 3 issues. but i cant believe that blm easily get 500 dps lol. http://www.twitch.tv/saerysthia/c/5653653 a month ago video.
(and that holy shit WAR close to 400dps in t11 LOL)
This party cleard t10 just in 7:30 and this blm manage to touch 500 dps with 130wp and 125+ IL before i checked.
i am surprised at your awesome confidence. can u show me ur any parse or video as SMN pov ' o'/?
that's fine even dummy parse.

inb4 Akiza

All SMN really needs is a good rebalancing. Just lower mp costs or up the gain of piety when we equip the SMN soul stone. Maybe slightly raise our DoTs potencies.
nothing crazy
Which brings up another issue. SE can't easily buff SMN because it will buff ACN which will buff SCH which is currently doing well.

SE can buff Summoner easily if you only take the time to actually think about it. You can up the potency of Fester and your pet. That is all that is really needed. You can implement the Crit trait on your pet to momentarily increase your Crit chance. There are plently of options for a small buff.
@ Oldkrys, I am not an awesome black mage. I do 450-460 DPS with ilvl 120 and 120 weapon opn T10. Also remember that the BLM is limit breaking. On T11 I get around 440 DPS on T12 I get around 440 as well with LB and T13 is really good for BLM, I have around 450-460 unmerged parse. I don't know why you would ask for a SMN PoV, though. I haven't touched SMN since them being screwed over. I won't get nowhere near on my Summoner.

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Originally Posted by ViviAnimus

SE can buff Summoner easily if you only take the time to actually think about it. You can up the potency of Fester and your pet. That is all that is really needed. You can implement the Crit trait on your pet to momentarily increase your Crit chance. There are plently of options for a small buff.

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I keep seeing post about increasing pet damage or the potency of fester. How will this resolve current issues. Sure it will increase dps. However it doesnt resolve any mana issues and dps will still drop off massively trying to conserve mana

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Originally Posted by OdKrys

i agreed all your 3 issues. but i cant believe that blm easily get 500 dps lol. http://www.twitch.tv/saerysthia/c/5653653 a month ago video.
(and that holy shit WAR close to 400dps in t11 LOL)
This party cleard t10 just in 7:30 and this blm manage to touch 500 dps with 130wp and 125+ IL before i checked.
i am surprised at your awesome confidence. can u show me ur any parse or video as SMN pov ' o'/?
that's fine even dummy parse.

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In that fight scholar is using selene all of the time and that give BLM pretty big boost over SMN. In harder fights like t13, scholars is gonna use more eos and that make lower gap between BLM and SMN. All SMN videos that I have seen from t13, BLM and SMN is doing pretty much same damage in the end of the battle.

No, the mana issue needs to be addressed as well. The Summoner is very low on damage ST and it should also receive a DPS increase in that department. Not a huge amount, but it should have higher ST than BLM, which it no means has.

SMNs can be used in FCOB, all classes can. However the effort to play a SMN well is not balanced with the reward in DPS.

Micromanagement of Pet
Micromanagement of Mana (Critical)
Micromanagement of Fester vs Energy Drain
Micromanagement of Bane usage.
Micromanagement of Aetherflow use and timing of use per fight (Critical)
Not canceling DoT recasts when, DoTs need to be up.

All of that to result in lower DPS then a BLM anyway, who has to worry simply about not canceling casts whenever possible /saving procs for movement or current MP left (critical)

Good BLM >>>>> Good SMN and it's reflected very strongly in DPS numbers.

DPS on a SMN also heavily depends on what your party has you doing in the fight.

In a composition for example on T12, which consists of both a SMN / BLM, if a SMN is able to Bane onto Black Fires (DPS increase) , versus a BLM who can one shot them with Flare ( Huge Increase), Flaring Bennus in Phase 3 vs Dotting Bennus in Phase 3.

Staying solely on the boss as a SMN or having to help with killing Bennus while BLM stays on boss (Superior single target) ,possibly to push the phase quicker.

Basically unless you cater every mechanic or so to the SMN exclusively (Rare in a BLM/SMN party composition, because BLM spikes much harder resulting in faster killing.), it's likely going to be out DPS'd by the BLM. As much as BLM benefits from Procs, more often then not they have single target DPS on lock on any fight lasting more then 2 minutes.

The problem with the Summoner is their DPS is poorly optimized for fights longer then 2 min. Summoner's DPS slowly ramps up reaches it's maximum after 12.5s then steadily drops to its minimum and never recovers even with Fester and good mp management. SE should reduce the cool down on Enkindke to 30s because right now it does the same damage as Fester but on an ungodly long cool down.

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Originally Posted by zcrash970

Basically:
1.) if SMNs do not use Energy Drain and use our stacks for strictly Festers,I think we can last 3 minutes and 30 seconds to about 4 minutes I believe without Mage's Ballad while other DPS jobs, excluding BLM, can go 4 minutes plus without the use of Army's Paeon.

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God forbid you have to use a skill with lower potency to regain resources. Fights in FCOB have very little down time, meaning melee run dry around 4 minutes even with invigorate, no paeon means if we did not have to deal with a mechanic (in certain fights at least), we are going to be scraping for TP. I would gladly take a lower potency skill for to regain tp.

I posted this up about 2 months ago, but it outlines basics of what is wrong with the SMN class.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...N-Class-Issues

The currently debated arguments of SMN viability in downing content, is a whole other matter.

The way SMN DPS scales at the moment is highly reliant on DoT uptime vs. fight length, mechanics/phase timing, and raid DPS. Most of the SMN currently expressing their ability to keep a fairly high DPS parse in FCoB are guaranteed to have moderately high Raid DPS backing them up in addition to a significant amount of over-gearing (more gear than minimally required ilvl wise in comparison to the lowest ilvl possible for completion; MNK/MNK/BRD/BLM composition can complete FCoB in full 110 from pre-2.4 and i90 accessories, proven by FC Lucrezia).

As stated, due to SMN sustainability, the shorter the fight or phase, the higher the SMN can keep their numbers. The longer the fight or phase lasts, the SMN strength and viability suffer. Due to the nature of minimal item level across the raid equaling a higher raid encounter time, the SMN capacity/utility is significantly lower in such an environment.

Personal experience in FCoB: our static team cleared T13 with a MNK/BRD/SMN/BLM composition; but only after we had our 130 weapons. My personal and team skill is most definitely not on par with say the likes of Lucrezia or BG, so my assessment may not be entirely accurate. Skill cap does play a significant part in class and composition value; it is difficult to truly calculate the skill cap between a team unless comparing on a 1 to 1 same composition basis.

I can throw numbers out there stating I have gotten as high as 470 DPS in a merged parse of Phase 1/2/Final (Pure Boss enrage check DPS value), using 135 weapon and 2 i130 left side,2 i130 right side, Piety Melded Gloves and Ring. Monk doing 500+ in i130 weapon and about the same armor as myself, BLM doing about 450 in i130 weapon and 110 melded only and no i130 armor, and Bard doing about 450 with i135 weapon ilvl123 2x TP/MP songs in those phases. Could I do anything close to this if the other DPS were not pulling such high number? It is highly unlikely for me to even meet the necessary DPS check to even be considered a viable choice if not for my current gear and the raids DPS value.

So to answer the question of, “can a SMN clear the FCoB and do decent DPS?”

Most definitely, but only under the condition of overgearing and high raid DPS.

Now if one were to ask the question of “should I take a SMN to FCoB for endgame competition (World/Server First)?”

The answer would be “No, take a BLM as caster and run a 2x melee 1x bard composition.”

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The SMN class has a hard DPS cap of DoT potency, Fester, and pet skills combined with the limitation on resources.

Roughly estimated, in a raid environment with Foe Req assisted openings, the SMN can sustain DPS required to compete with other classes for about 4 minutes. Due to resource limitations and CD length, DPS will decline rapidly past this point. This is where the SMN versus other class comparison comes in. In comparison to mnk/nin/drg (post buff) which has much higher damage to resource sustainment ratio, SMN is not optimal past the first few minutes of a phase/fight.

The SMN lacks sustainability of its damage over any lengthy period, to the point in which given a capacity comparison, translates to rough DPS difference 50+ DPS on a BLM and 100+ for melee.

Referencing pure dummy solo DPS, a MNK/NIN/DRG can push well past 530 DPS alone with no food/pot/party with a 130+ weapon; the SMN around 430. In equal gear so far at around ilvl120 armor/accs and i130+ weapon a DRG/MNK/NIN can do at least 100+ more DPS than a SMN; I imagine the gap increases with full i130 purely due to current stats on gear.

In any case, in an optimally matched or perhaps even a pure single target DPS cap comparison in 2.4 BiS, SMN has the lowest in the maximum output capacity department; perhaps only second to bard?

Due to a lack of BiS Bard to BiS SMN parse comparison availability, I cannot say for sure which has a lower max DPS Cap.

Bards have similar issues of poor SS (skillspeed) scaling and their gear stats being non-optimal for their class; though not as extreme as the SMN SS (Spellspeed) stat weight issue. If you take a look at the FCoB and Poetics 130 armor BiS, along with stat weights, SMN has the lowest scaling and gain of every class.

Refer to the stat weights here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...eight_updates/

To answer many of the questions about SMN at this current point in time, the 2.4 stat weight distribution in conjunction with the lack of mana resource availability/sustainability for SMN is a strong contributing factor to the class being considered “a poor choice for endgame.”

The major issue lies within the top end DPS capacity of DoM vs. DoW, referred to above and in the linked original thread, which contributes to SMN being considered a weak class. On most dungeon/trial/farm content, the SMN class can be full of utility and be minimally affected by many of these issues. The issues are most prominent though when comparing and analyzing in a min/max endgame environment.

There are a myriad of possible fixes ranging from pet buffs, stats rebalancing, to pure potency buffs of job specific skills. It may seem that something is in the works concerning adjustment to the way spellspeed works in 3.0 (hinted through live letters, etc.) Perhaps SS translating to faster dot ticks below the 3 second server time? A SMN can dream. Guess we will have to see how SE plays this one out.

The blm in my static about ilvl 116 or 117 with 125 relic can 500 t10. I haven't seen smns getting anywhere near this. Like the dragoon, se maybe felt drg was balanced by it's aoe ability? And maybe it's sub-par bard buff? well smn needs the same. Se gotta realise smns non-spike high multi target dps doesn't compensate their poor longterm sustain dps. It aint fair to expect smns to energy drain instead of fester imo. every raid will have a melee dps, and song priority will always be paeon>foe. raids wouldn't even consider ballad just for a smn since the loss of dps from using ED instead of fester happens to be smaller than the dps loss a bard will have casting ballad.

or in other words: Smn using ED+ un nerfed bard singing foe > festering smn +nerfed bard singing ballad. Ballad also nerfes the blm too, if there is one present.

yh I agree it seems wrong and it's all due to damn resources.

Why are smns getting ignored???

Everyone comparing SMN dps to BLM, when good Monks/Nin's out-dps both caster classes on most important fights.

SMN dps is not far behind BLM, but SMN does add more utility.

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

Everyone comparing SMN dps to BLM, when good Monks/Nin's out-dps both caster classes on most important fights.

SMN dps is not far behind BLM, but SMN does add more utility.

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What does MNK/NIN out-dpsing casters have to do with this discussion ? The point is, all progression groups would prefer a BLM over a SMN as their main caster, that's just a fact and for good reasons.

Also, 50 DPS is a pretty noticeable difference which is the difference between BLM and SMN on most turns. And lol @ utility. SMNs mana management is bad enough already without Battle-res. If you are gonna Battle-res, you more than likely will need your bard to play ballad for you which would be a raid DPS loss. Virus ? SCHs already have that covered.

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Originally Posted by OneWingedSora

What does MNK/NIN out-dpsing casters have to do with this discussion ?

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It's common sense to compare to the highest DPS classes, when discussing why SMN has weaker DPS. (something I'm not disagreeing with)

The gap between Monk/Nin and SMN is much more noticable.

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Originally Posted by OneWingedSora

And lol @ utility. SMNs mana management is bad enough already without Battle-res. If you are gonna Battle-res, you more than likely will need your bard to play ballad for you which would be a raid DPS loss.

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It adds a lot of utility to the class, I for one would rather a raid DPS loss and a kill, than a wipe.

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

Snip.

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The point still stands. Any serious progression group would prefer a BLM over a SMN as their primary caster.

Also, unless you are overgeared to the bones, multiple deaths in any end game content is not really an option, which renders battle-res useless.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

I've been looking around the net an I've been getting a lot of mixed messages. Posts about Summoner being top DPS and posts about Summoner being subpar. I've even seen posts about people kicking Summoner because of said DPS.

Can anyone explain why?

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Why not play the job/class yourself and come to your own conclusions?

Just a bit about the SMN utility factor; already posted in other thread but will link here:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2595719

It is true that a SMN brings utility, but utility only when the content is killable with deaths; farm status or content with a low/no DPS check requirement.

All of this is purely based on a min/max scenario assumed as minimal item level required to kill the content, entirely in relation to comparison of class roles.

Most fights in FCoB take about 10 min or more with bosses health pools closer to 1 million HP. 50 DPS over 10 minutes is 30,000 Damage or 3% of the boss HP. 100 DPS is 6% of the Boss HP. Classes being able to do 3-6% (30-60k) more on a boss than another class is quite a significant difference.

tl;dr of why SMN is the worst DPS:

- Almost completely outclassed by BLM (burst, sustained DPS, no resource issues - would require VERY heavy movement or multi-DoTs for SMN to beat BLM) which is huge when considering a job's position if you have an alternative that does almost everything the same or better in effective terms
- MP issues lowering their already low-end DPS (unless you can multi-DoT a lot but BLM wins anyway)
- Multi-DoT situations often too short for the ramp-up (ironically SMN was better in this area when we weren't overgeared but then it was more a liability to T12/T13 phase pushes anyway)
- "Utility" is either covered by the existence of SCH having Super-Virus, meaning it doesn't matter what type of Virus SMN has since every group has the one Super-Virus user they need, or you don't need it currently (pets can't do stack mechanics, Resurrection in FCoB is more or less only used as a means to prolong a wipe anyway for learning purposes during progression). The most you can say about SMN utility is it has a slightly faster E4E which should never be make or break (and TBH 99% of groups don't have such E4E upkeep that it's used on CD by all, even in high end groups)

Most end game raids punish death severely thus res has no use. A summoner is last priorty for a res anyway. If you are needing more than 2 res in a minute there is something very wrong. Eye for an eye can be used by scholar at the same frequency. White mage and black mage can also use all be it on a slower cooldown. A good scholar should be controlling virus use. White mage and black mage can also use virus although it doesnt have the super virus trait. So overall summoner utility isn't anything special.

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Originally Posted by Ephier

God forbid you have to use a skill with lower potency to regain resources. Fights in FCOB have very little down time, meaning melee run dry around 4 minutes even with invigorate, no paeon means if we did not have to deal with a mechanic (in certain fights at least), we are going to be scraping for TP. I would gladly take a lower potency skill for to regain tp.

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I think you missed the point entirely.
I was making the point where if the bard was going the play AP or MB for strictly DPS resource restore, then AP will always be the better choice no matter what. Even if you add the tanks and healers to this, AP will probably be better. Most healers can manage their MP to last an entire battle if it is a perfect run( i.e no one has died,) while on the other hand tanks, in particular OT WARs, will burn through their TP no matter what and probably need AP at some point much like the DoWs DPS.

Also, yes. You should be using ED once for every Aetherflow stack but it brings our DPS down no matter what kind of spin you put on it. Our utility doesn't make up for the DPS gap between BLM and SMN.

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Originally Posted by VoltaAsura

Why not play the job/class yourself and come to your own conclusions?

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I have been. Summoner was the first job I got. But lately I've been feeling more and more useless and all this talk about Summoner being subpar isnt helping.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

I have been. Summoner was the first job I got. But lately I've been feeling more and more useless and all this talk about Summoner being subpar isnt helping.

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Checking your achievements, you haven't really hit the content where you should feel less useful than other DPS. At the level of content you're doing, you shouldn't feel weak, that is purely a gear/skill issue at that point.

Only really becomes apparent in FCoB and if you do old content with skilled, overgeared players where DoTs can't last on anything but the main boss.

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

Checking your achievements, you haven't really hit the content where you should feel less useful than other DPS. At the level of content you're doing, you shouldn't feel weak, that is purely a gear/skill issue at that point.

Only really becomes apparent in FCoB and if you do old content with skilled, overgeared players where DoTs can't last on anything but the main boss.

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Its just that whenever the tank makes big pulls, I just feel like I'm slowing everything down. When we have a BLM in the group everything seems to go faster. I apply all my dots and do everything I can to keep DPS up, I just feel like a massive anchor.

She wants to stop playing Summoner but she can't.

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Originally Posted by Brianmj

She wants to stop playing Summoner but she can't.

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I did the books for my Summoner relic and now I feel incredibly obligated to continue playing it. :/

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

I did the books for my Summoner relic and now I feel incredibly obligated to continue playing it. :/

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It's not like you can only get 1 relic or 1 high ilvl weapon.

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Originally Posted by zcrash970

It's not like you can only get 1 relic or 1 high ilvl weapon.

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But the time it took to do those books.... Just feels like a waste if I drop summoner.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

Its just that whenever the tank makes big pulls, I just feel like I'm slowing everything down. When we have a BLM in the group everything seems to go faster. I apply all my dots and do everything I can to keep DPS up, I just feel like a massive anchor.

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Of course big pulls go faster with a BLM; no other DPS job can compete with BLM's AOE capability, but that in no way makes those other jobs bad.

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Originally Posted by Lilyarel

But the time it took to do those books.... Just feels like a waste if I drop summoner.

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Wont it be a waste of time playing a job you don't enjoy?

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Originally Posted by Brianmj

Wont it be a waste of time playing a job you don't enjoy?

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That's the logic I am going with.
OR BETTER YET!!! Have multiple jobs geared so you can freely switch between. Yes, it is time consuming but you have more options.

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Originally Posted by zcrash970

That's the logic I am going with.
OR BETTER YET!!! Have multiple jobs geared so you can freely switch between. Yes, it is time consuming but you have more options.

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To hell with DPS numbers from parsers that aren't even supposed to be used in the game. Do you enjoy the job youre playing? Are you progressing through content? Are you having fun? Then screw it, be the underdog: be a summoner.

-A fellow SMN mainer

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Originally Posted by ShaolinMike

To hell with DPS numbers from parsers that aren't even supposed to be used in the game. Do you enjoy the job youre playing? Are you progressing through content? Are you having fun? Then screw it, be the underdog: be a summoner.

-A fellow SMN mainer

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She said she didn't enjoy it. It's the first line in her other thread, I want to stop playing Summoner... But I can't.

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I dont enjoy it, I feel like a massive liability to the team. Whenever I join a group I feel like people are going "ugh, gotta carry this stupid Summoner." The only reason I havnt dropped the class was because I did the first stage of the relic for the job at the time i enjoyed summoner, but as time went on I couldnt shake the feeling that I was becoming more aware of how bad the job is. And I just didnt have anything to offer. When the tank does big pulls I always feel like I'm going "Dont worry! Let me slowly and gruelingly kill these!"

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LOL!

It sounds like you don't enjoy the job because of your own perception of how your static members see the job, as opposed to not liking the play style. Either way, if you don't ENJOY the job in a GAME you're playing, CHANGE JOBS. Regardless of how much time you've spent on SMN, you're only digging yourself further into the hole by not switching sooner. Yes, the animus books are hell on Earth, but you'll feel much better doing them on a job you actually enjoy.

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Originally Posted by VoltaAsura

Why not play the job/class yourself and come to your own conclusions?

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This ^

A lot of the posts on this thread were made by people who don't even really play SMN as main class and think they know it all and sometimes described the class incorrectly/not being played at its best.

Good smn will do just as good dps as good blm, but it's just rare to find one, especially with so many changed to play other classes.