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
casters: what am I missing
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08-01-2015, 06:27 AMHapposaicasters: what am I missing
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08-01-2015, 06:32 AMGooner_iBluAirJGR
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)
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08-01-2015, 06:38 AMSleigh
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. -
08-01-2015, 06:42 AMMuchmidget
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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08-01-2015, 06:47 AMwhiskeybravo
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 :) -
08-01-2015, 06:53 AMHapposaiLol 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gooner_iBluAirJGR
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! -
08-01-2015, 06:57 AMHapposaiThat is deffinitely new news to me! Tyvm ill check it outQuote:
Originally Posted by whiskeybravo
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08-01-2015, 08:35 AMAlkimiLike 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".Quote:
Originally Posted by Muchmidget
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08-02-2015, 02:57 AMOJ191Agree 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Happosai
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08-02-2015, 04:34 AMHapposaiTrue 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.Quote:
Originally Posted by OJ191
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08-02-2015, 01:35 PMNovaLevossida
To be honest, while SMN has more buttons to hit than BLM, I find all those abilities, pet management, aethertrail management, and the like to be a lot less annoying than juggling an Enochian timer just to cast your highest tier fire / ice spells which didn't require such ridiculous upkeep pre-Heavensward. To sum up the two jobs, I think Summoner got a lot better while Black Mage just got annoying.
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08-02-2015, 02:24 PMAikaal
BLM skill level increased by over 9000. But seriously, it<s harder to maximize DPS on BLM. I'm having a blast pulling 1.1k+ in A3S right now :3 I can probably reach 1150+ with a DRG and Draconian Potions. Guaranteed if I get Selene also xD
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08-02-2015, 02:38 PMIagainsti
@Happosai Scathe, Surecast and Freeze are all clinch PvP abilities as is. Probably won't see any changes.
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08-12-2015, 02:56 AMHapposaiI dont even pvp bruh lol xDQuote:
Originally Posted by Iagainsti
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08-12-2015, 03:15 AMGarotte14
Rule of thumb should be, if you have to move longer than 2.5 seconds, you should be using scathe.
A good example of this is Ravana orbs, or having to drag your add in A1.
Obviously use your procs if you have any, and then swiftcast if it's available. But if you have neither and you have to move for a mechanic that will take longer than a single GCD, you should be using scathe. I get frustrated when I hear ppl say it's not even on their hotbar -
08-12-2015, 03:33 AMLaviehI definitely agree that difficulty is subjective but we can measure a classes easy by their skill floors and skill ceiling.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sleigh
Right now SMN has a pretty low skill floor as a well as a low Skill ceiling.
While BLM has a really high Skill ceiling.
Yea if Dot and Pet management aren't your thing then SMN will be a pest but given all things equal SMN is far easier to deal good numbers on than a BLM. Furthermore, it is a lot harder to distinguish a great SMN while a great BLM shines really bright. -
08-12-2015, 03:55 AMHapposaiI pretty much use scathe for the same reasons as you. I was talking about freeze and surecast not being on my bars as I dont pvp. Im aware surecast has a handful of uses for a handful of fights. Perhaps ill consider putting it on my barQuote:
Originally Posted by Garotte14
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08-12-2015, 04:03 AMSleighGotta respectfully disagree about a low skill ceiling on SMN, or that BLM's skill ceiling is much higher. SMN is more formulaic, but there's plenty to min/max on it, whether that's deciding on the optimal way to spend your Aetherflow stacks per the DPS check, to keeping your pet in line, to adjusting your rotation if you have to spend your DWT sooner than the minute marks that are so easy on a dummy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lavieh
Honestly BLM isn't that hard. Extremely easy on a dummy IMO (even if most people can't seem to pull it off right). The skill floor is absolutely devastating on BLM, this is true, but once you have the basics of it down, you kind of just do that dummy rotation (keeping an eye on proc and timer allowances) and when crap happens to you, you have to adjust once or twice then go on your way until the next variance comes at you. Honestly not a large skill barrier even in savage on that, it's just damage control.
Basically, SMN is about what you can do to the enemies, BLM is about what the enemies do to you. I would be very hesitant to say SMN is as easy mode as you suggest, even though I admit in some fights SMN has a much less confusing and adaptive time than BLM will, which is about the extent of the difficulty gap on them. To this day I see streams of A3S where players have BRDs and they'll do less than me up until add phase, which is extremely strange to me but I can't believe the skill ceiling is so low if I'm outperforming players in vastly better circumstances. People for some reason said the same thing about BRD in ARR, low skill ceiling, but then you'd see some BRDs top the charts in fights they had no business doing melee level DPS. -
08-12-2015, 04:08 AMHapposaiThat pretty much sums up my conclusion. Not a fan of dot management and prefer to only worry about myself rather than have a pet to micromanage. Im fine with the blm skill requirement. Any content ive struggled with has been cleared through learning the fight. Of course I cant speak of alex savage yet as ive only tried once with a pf group and we couldnt make it to first jump but atleast my add died under my lazer everytime :) will continue to struggle and love blm. After all im a filthy casual xDQuote:
Originally Posted by Lavieh
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08-12-2015, 05:35 AMHattorii
Don’t listen to ANY of these comments. The only true way to find out is level and play them both. Based off of that then make a decision. I am a caster… Not a blm not a smn but a caster. Do both.
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08-12-2015, 07:02 PMHapposaiGreat advice that all should listen to. My summoner is lvl 52 ish and so far I hate it lol I'm sure if I practiced it more it would become second nature but the amount of buttons is a bit much for me personally. I could probably handle it if i could get away with having the pet on sic but... no. I do kind of feel like im being pideon holed into smn as all recruiting statics i see are looking for smn, not smn/blm and certainly not just blm. But oh well im gonna stick with what i enjoy. If that means i have to wait till i outgear content to be allowed to "try" so be it. But yes, overall people should try for themselves. Dots n pets n aether choices are not my thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hattorii
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08-12-2015, 11:38 PMLaviehSMN's floor would be 1-2-3 Dots, 3x Festers, DWT -> Deathflare. It is pretty simple and the numbers produced from following such a simple pattern are really pretty decent. There is definitely a lot of things you can do to optimize your SMN rotation such as proper AT stack management, not clipping dots, attacking, using the right pet ect. But reaching the base potential of SMN is stupidly easy and optimizing your decisions doesn't really make a huge difference as opposed to other classes. That is what I meant by low ceiling. Yes there is a lot of tweaking you can do to increase your DPS but the end result isn't far off from that of a decent SMN.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sleigh
I may also be off with the skill ceiling of BLM. I think that the ceiling comes into to play when you have to handle mechanics though and learning how to DPS through them.
This is easily the biggest thing that distinguishes the two classes. You can always control what you do to an enemy but it is hard to control what the enemy can do to you (though possible). I would argue that SMN is among the easiest of classes to play decently (Given no personal preference, like not being good at watching dot timers ect).Quote:
SMN is about what you can do to the enemies, BLM is about what the enemies do to you.
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08-13-2015, 12:18 AMUninstallWhat you talked about is the skill floor not the skill ceiling though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lavieh
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08-13-2015, 12:29 AMInosaska
SMN is easy even if played badly still produces better results then someone who plays badly at blm and that's basically it. I've been playing SMN from the beginning but I don't think I'm anywhere near good with it. I play it because of how easy it is to get into the job. The one thing to work on is stack management but I really suck at controlling my pet in fact I don't even bother but I still do good but maybe that's just me thinking I'm good but I'm bad.
The job is still a warlock from wow and I never once controlled my pet in that game and still produced high dps being top 3 maybe because I focus on keeping my dots up correctly makes me look good and casting my spells constantly. Do those two things and you do perfectly fine dps in the end.
I stopped playing the job recently though and I'm in limbo about playing the game because all these new buttons are such a turn off for me. I could go back to leveling my drk which was easy and didn't require much to play. That's always an option for me. I just don't know. I also suck at ability weaving. I guess I'm just turned off by the game with all the changes or maybe I'm just stressing out to much at trying to produce good DPS. Sorry if I fell off topic just needed to get that out of me. Any advice would be great though. -
08-13-2015, 01:19 AMLaviehQuote:
Originally Posted by Uninstall
I was talking about how little a difference reaching the ceiling makes compared to the floor.