Why did they make SMN harder to play?

I think SMN dps is pretty good tbh.
So before you start shouting that SMN is fine these are simply thoughts on what i think could be done better with the job.

What i don't understand is why they increased the skill gap between good players and mediocre players.
When they we're developing SB they told us they wanted to shrink the gap between good players and bad players, thats why they removed or merged some abilitys. Not only for making our hotbars less crowded but to make it less intimidating for the new players.
What they failed to do is shrink the gap between the good SMNs and the average summoner. The gap between good players and "bad" players are larger than ever. SMN has a potential to do alot of damage but it requires a high skill cap and near perfect rotations and proper timings.

Most current summoners needs to plan in advanced when to use his cds when to not use them etc. That itself requires you to know the encounter almost flawless. Failing to do this result in a massive dps loss.
The summoner class is punished pretty harshly for failing to a missed fester and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.

I don't think we need a potency increase in our spells but rather an easier way of dishing out the damage we were supposed to do and make it less punishing.
A good start to mend the whole punishing aspect is to change how fester works:

If you have no dots up on fester it will not use any Aether but it will go on cooldown.
If bane has no enemys around its target it wont use any Aether but obv it will go on cooldown.

This will give new players and the mediocre player a chance to do things properly again without having to wait for Aetherflow to come off cooldown again and your entire rotation wont get pushed up another minute. Its still a dps loss since you messed up but it wont punish you that you're not really doing anything for a minute.

The other part is our pets, i'm sure tons of you have pressed 'Akh Morn' with only 1 second left on bahamut. This normaly leads to bahamut trying to cast it but disappears before it finishing the cast, in some instances you can even see the animation go off but the damage isent there. I'm sure alot of it has to do with latency. But a good way of dealing with this would be to make usable pet abilitys cancle when you use an ability and make all pet abilitys. For example when you use enkindle it tends to finish its cast then it uses enkindle on the boss. What if when you press Enkindle you will automaticly cancle the current pet action and cast it directly? That would make the pet way more responsive than they are currently. I'm sure there is some macro for it somewhere but I dont have it currently and we shouldnt need a macro to properly control our pets.

It this isent possible then i'd suggest you put all major cooldowns for our pets off global cooldown so even if the pet is casting Wind Blade it can still use Contagion this will smooth out our rotations a lot and it would feel alot better to use.

The other part is the ruin spam we're been going through. I'd love for some more engaging way of spaming ruin. The R4 was a step in the right direction but we need something else to make it engaging to actually play the job. BRD is an excellent example of looking at engaging gameplay. Sure we are not BRDs but it could be anything. Right now between Aetherflow cds etc we're just spaming ruin. Thats all we're doing. If you have enough mana: R3 if not R1 if movment R2 and R4 on procs. Its to much ruin. It would be great if casting a ruin could maybe proc Miasma to be instant off global CD or maybe give us back an Aether stack. Something to look forward to when spaming ruin.


I know a lot of people wont agree with me and think all of this is absolute horse shite but from my perspective this is just a fix to make it slightly easier to play SMN, i'm not suggesting potency buffs to our spells but rather an easier way of dealing with the tools we have.

I'm stupid.

https://media.giphy.com/media/ffBiQjN4E2nNm/giphy.gif

You can bypass the character limit by hitting the edit button.

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Originally Posted by Leigaon

https://media.giphy.com/media/ffBiQjN4E2nNm/giphy.gif

You can bypass the character limit by hitting the edit button.

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That made it alot easier on the eye, thank you.

I said in another thread that, on a deep level, SMN and BLM are very similar if you want to execute them well.
What I meant was something you highlighted- you need, on both jobs, to have an extremely precise planning of your cds to do well in a fight. We're talking down to two seconds or so here. Further, both jobs might need to adjust their rotation in advance due to upcoming mechanics.
SMN has the added issue that a critical failure is much more punishing (death), where BLM can still somewhat recover within 15ish seconds (although that's painful too).

Pets are, as you said, a clunky, unresponsive mess (3.4 Garuda flashbacks for me).
Why? I think they just don't understand casters very well.
I know this is a painful answer- painfully useless too- but given this whole BLM and SMN fiasco in 4.0... I just think these jobs are a bit too complex when you min/max them for the dev team to see these things coming :/
I'm sure they dummy parsed this and went "great!" and failed to predict what issues would be hampering all this in an actual raid.
(Heck, they probably didn't even parse BLM, because they come out the same).

I don't think it is harder to be honest. Once I got my SMN, to 70, I thought it was pretty easy to pull off if you are paying attention enough. Then again it could also be because of my BLM main in which timing is essential for most everything like a chess game, so I am used to it.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

What I meant was something you highlighted- you need, on both jobs, to have an extremely precise planning of your cds to do well in a fight. We're talking down to two seconds or so here. Further, both jobs might need to adjust their rotation in advance due to upcoming mechanics.

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Good point. Planning can work out well with a static where you can begin to anticipate how the other members will react on certain fights. However it becomes nigh on impossible when you PUG as you have no idea how the other players will react as events unfold.

If you were playing smn correctly in 3.x, it's actually a lot easier now. More punishing, maybe, with the changes to aetherflow, but as far as complexity and actual rotational difficulty, the skill floor is much lower.

If I can be honest: Summoner at 70 right now has the beginning of a rhythm for me between Trance and Bahamut. With some QoL love and buffs it can reach a good flow imo. I enjoy it honestly, despite it being frustrating at times currently. Clunkiness holds it back, Devotion feels tacked on though I understand what they were going for. They wanted utility that prioritized the pet because we're a Summoner. Problem is, because that utility is held back on a pets action and they're not the most responsive, Bahamut included. Bahamut needs reprogramming to prioritize attacking over movement.

Now why Summoner is so hard to play...I feel and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but Summoner to me feels neglected. I feel like they gave us Bahamut basically for the fans of Summoners at the cost of 70% of our power in Heavensward. Based on my impressions with Stormblood and the live letter, I could be wrong but Summoner to them is just there and they don't want anything to compete with their baby, which I totally understand.

I hope the developers take the time to understand their vision of the class and make the necessary changes so that my favorite job can ebb and flow, even if it's different from Heavensward.

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Originally Posted by Claviusnex

Good point. Planning can work out well with a static where you can begin to anticipate how the other members will react on certain fights. However it becomes nigh on impossible when you PUG as you have no idea how the other players will react as events unfold.

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Planning for pugs = plan for worst case scenario. I've grown rather adept at that xD
I even plan my Lucid/Diversion usage to avoid getting tankbuster'd in the face ;)
(Then a healer dies and we wipe, but hey, I ain't tanking that).

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Originally Posted by SnugglesD

If you were playing smn correctly in 3.x, it's actually a lot easier now. More punishing, maybe, with the changes to aetherflow, but as far as complexity and actual rotational difficulty, the skill floor is much lower.

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as a SMN main in 3.x and now Lv70 SMN.. i absolutely disagree with your statement.

SMN in 3.x was very forgiving.
you can re-cast your shadow Flare to reposition it... (when tank move the mobs around etc)... in 4.0.. a 60 sec cd
in 3.x if you miss any aetherflow gague skill.. you just get delay on the dreadwyrm trance... but in 4.0 you get a delay on both dreadwyrm trance and summon bahamut.
if you use aetherflow while you are in Dreadwyrm trance.. GG. <<< I can't for the life of me figure out why they would do this.

.......remove tri-bind already.

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Originally Posted by Ferrasper

I don't think it is harder to be honest. Once I got my SMN, to 70, I thought it was pretty easy to pull off if you are paying attention enough. Then again it could also be because of my BLM main in which timing is essential for most everything like a chess game, so I am used to it.

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Originally Posted by SnugglesD

If you were playing smn correctly in 3.x, it's actually a lot easier now. More punishing, maybe, with the changes to aetherflow, but as far as complexity and actual rotational difficulty, the skill floor is much lower.

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That what one would think but it's not what we actually see with smn being so low in all percentiles on fflogs. It means players are struggling with dealing decent damage on smn.

SMN in 3.0 had to upkeep DOTs 7-8 times per minute excluding Tri-Disaster, and followed a 60second rotation more forgiving on movement.
SMN in 4.0 need only upkeep a pair of DOTs once every two minutes, but follow a 120second rotation less forgiving on movement.

I personally think 4.0 is harder, but perhaps i'm still new to this gamestyle.

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Originally Posted by aldoteng

SMN in 3.0 had to upkeep DOTs 7-8 times per minute excluding Tri-Disaster, and followed a 60second rotation more forgiving on movement.
SMN in 4.0 need only upkeep a pair of DOTs once every two minutes, but follow a 120second rotation less forgiving on movement.

I personally think 4.0 is harder, but perhaps i'm still new to this gamestyle.

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Even if you are new to it(tho best of us struggling with it) 4.0 smn playstayle is still pure garbage. Clunky and poorly designed. People already wrote enough about its problems so I won't rant too much lol. I'll just wait for patch notes to decide if I should be angry or very angry.

Oh my god...
>Aetherflow actions are no longer required to inflict an effect on a target to gain Aethertrail Attunement.
It is a step into the right direction but damn...
Literally time to unsub loool
(also dat PvP nerf olol)

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Originally Posted by Angry_Evil

Oh my god...
>Aetherflow actions are no longer required to inflict an effect on a target to gain Aethertrail Attunement.
It is a step into the right direction but damn...
Literally time to unsub loool
(also dat PvP nerf olol)

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Well, at least this guarantees that we don't get screwed if we whiff on an Aetherflow skill, which was one of the major issues.

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Originally Posted by ShaolinMike

Well, at least this guarantees that we don't get screwed if we whiff on an Aetherflow skill, which was one of the major issues.

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The one fix they made is the one problem I have the least issues with. I'm disappointed of course, and I wonder if the devs really do not mind SMN being so low in parses? The only one unique utility we provide is Magic Damage Up, useful only in a caster comp.

Is it possible that SMN is parsing low on average simply because it is highly difficult to optimize, and if played to its full potential, its damage is decent? I just looked at fflogs again. SMN is ranked 6th on 90th and 95th percentiles, and then last or second last on 80th and below percentiles. But even on this argument, DRG's multiple buffs should push it ahead of SMN.

And let's not talk about RDM which is just a superior caster in all regards, besides the Magic Damage up utility.

At this point I refuse to believe the devs have intention to really balance the classes.

Of course we can still play something else for the mean time, shrugs.

Gotta wait for dat 4.2 for ruin3 potency increase...

Gotta wait for that 5.0 job remake again because square is struggling so hard with smn rn.

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Originally Posted by Liii

Gotta wait for that 5.0 job remake again because square is struggling so hard with smn rn.

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oooh I would not bet on it... They had all the chances to make smn amazing in 4.0 but decided to kill it instead.
By 5.0 SMN probably will just be deleted from the game at last

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Originally Posted by Liii

Gotta wait for that 5.0 job remake again because square is struggling so hard with smn rn.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, 4.0 tore down everything that Summoner had been built up to.

4 Dots - 2 Dots with a Dot cd.

Freely using skills in dreadwyrm trance to maximize damage - Ruin spam.
Clunky pet design, obliterating all Aoe Potential.

I still can't believe that one of the viable endgame Summoner openers have you use Ruin 2 or Ruin3 a combined total of thirty eight times..

If 5.0 is anything Like 4.0 Summoner will be a bigger threat to the party then they will be to anything else lol.

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Originally Posted by Furiea

as a SMN main in 3.x and now Lv70 SMN.. i absolutely disagree with your statement.

SMN in 3.x was very forgiving.
you can re-cast your shadow Flare to reposition it... (when tank move the mobs around etc)... in 4.0.. a 60 sec cd
in 3.x if you miss any aetherflow gague skill.. you just get delay on the dreadwyrm trance... but in 4.0 you get a delay on both dreadwyrm trance and summon bahamut.
if you use aetherflow while you are in Dreadwyrm trance.. GG. <<< I can't for the life of me figure out why they would do this.

.......remove tri-bind already.

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Less forgiving =/= more difficult. Tri-disaster reset, changes to dot timers and removal of bio, changes to aetherflow, removal of spur, etc all equal out to making the job simpler. No more real dot management, much easier double weaving, no need to squeeze all of your damage and a whole aetherflow cool down into dwt. Yes, it's more punishing if you mess up, but it's harder to mess up now.

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Originally Posted by SnugglesD

Less forgiving =/= more difficult. Tri-disaster reset, changes to dot timers and removal of bio, changes to aetherflow, removal of spur, etc all equal out to making the job simpler. No more real dot management, much easier double weaving, no need to squeeze all of your damage and a whole aetherflow cool down into dwt. Yes, it's more punishing if you mess up, but it's harder to mess up now.

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The text nearby your Avatar says your Summoner is Lvl 62.

Maybe you can show us the source of your first hand experience? Maybe a video where you do an Omega Savage Dummy as a Summoner?

I've played Summoner for fun in 2.0 and 3.0 and now in 4.0 as my main. I've never had such a trouble with it before. One GCD to early or to late? Its a very hard issue now. In 2.0 or 3.0 it was mostly no big deal.

So I really must miss the most important thing that makes it so easy now.

I find 4.0 Summoner way harder then 3.0 and I also want to add that summoner feels like the class was rushed at the last moment. I say this as the job quest makes no sense for the reward. The otehr Summoner in my FC and I landed on "You know Allagan Rot as a DoT would have made more sense with that 70 job quest then Bahamut." We also arrived on the class feels way more clunky then it did in Heavensward and we both felt angered by RDM taking our utility and doing it better.

I can see where the problems came from though, we have to admit the Summoner camp as a whole can't make up it's mind about what the class should be. Personally I liked Heavensward where it was a DoT management class with some pet management but a lot of people wanted less DoTs and more pet management. I still think the best way to handle it would be pick which the class is and make a new job for the alternative next expansion.

Honestly I envy SCH now and that Quicken Aetherflow trait they got. That would help out so much with MP, DPS, and overall flow of the job. There are huge chucks of time we are just standing around casting ruin waiting for AF to refresh so we can get going again.

Devotion, just make it a party wide buff.

Some friends don't understand when I say SMN has become a hard class to play.

Of course,the gameplay is easier. AF time, Transe, AF, Trans, Bahamut synced with 3rd aetherflow time. Nice. But just do it as you used to in 3.X and you're sure to be at 3500 DPS top. the best one in fflogs is at 4500 in i314 on dummy : good luck to reach that.
THAT is where difficulty is : not about playing the "basic" of the job (what I would call the braindead / stressed out-progress-death rotation), but playing it at its best. Really demanding, really punitive, extremely precise time windows, do THIS skill particularly at the 41th GCD EXACTLY or go lose 300 DPS, etc...
Of course I can go in Savage, but it's infuriating to have the hardest time of my life to go past my 3900 dummy parse, when I know some manage 4500. I was closer to them in 3.x, and being less efficient now with my main class (while the class has the same potential as the other), well that really pisses me off. Feel like I noobed out.

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Originally Posted by Xeronia

I can see where the problems came from though, we have to admit the Summoner camp as a whole can't make up it's mind about what the class should be. Personally I liked Heavensward where it was a DoT management class with some pet management but a lot of people wanted less DoTs and more pet management. I still think the best way to handle it would be pick which the class is and make a new job for the alternative next expansion.

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I feel like there should be a poll, "Pick your main job", one vote per service account. Then, allow level-capped players of that job vote into another poll that will guide their direction (or re-work) going forward. That would give them some insight as to what we want, and leave it only to invested SMN main-job players. There's a lot of extra "noise" where other people chime in who are not invested nor play this job all the time.

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Originally Posted by Nirokun

I feel like there should be a poll, "Pick your main job", one vote per service account. Then, allow level-capped players of that job vote into another poll that will guide their direction (or re-work) going forward. That would give them some insight as to what we want, and leave it only to invested SMN main-job players. There's a lot of extra "noise" where other people chime in who are not invested nor play this job all the time.

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What would be nice is if SE were to develop and release for Summoner community review their high level design and the road map to where they want to take it. The thing is I don't think they have any idea themselves on what to do with or what they expect of the job.

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Originally Posted by SnugglesD

Less forgiving =/= more difficult. Tri-disaster reset, changes to dot timers and removal of bio, changes to aetherflow, removal of spur, etc all equal out to making the job simpler. No more real dot management, much easier double weaving, no need to squeeze all of your damage and a whole aetherflow cool down into dwt. Yes, it's more punishing if you mess up, but it's harder to mess up now.

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You don't have SMN level 70. Stop talking and try it out first before making claims.

I don"t have 70smn and I already feeling its way harder to play
Hard in the sense that its so damn boring that I lost the will to play it anymore
Hope the developer team can make a re-revamp to make it fun again

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Originally Posted by SnugglesD

Less forgiving =/= more difficult. Tri-disaster reset, changes to dot timers and removal of bio, changes to aetherflow, removal of spur, etc all equal out to making the job simpler. No more real dot management, much easier double weaving, no need to squeeze all of your damage and a whole aetherflow cool down into dwt. Yes, it's more punishing if you mess up, but it's harder to mess up now.

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well.. i'm done with SMN. the job is so useless when you screw up aetherflow or if you pump everything out for AOE dmg.

never thought i would be standing in the middle of the dungeon thinking "wow... without aetherflow... SMN's spells are worthless to cast and they have no aoe spells to spam"

not only SMN is still a DOT class but also a cooldown only class now.
SCH can still do a lot of things without aetherflow but SMN is useless without aetherflow.

LOL @ 230 potency 720MP Broil II vs 150 potency 1440 Ruin III that has a chance to be "upgraded" to 200 potency Ruin IV LOLOL

Literally the ONLY reason I still main SMN as my caster DPS job is because I WANT to, NOT because of any benefit it provides to my party, NOT because of the DPS/utility it brings. It's strictly a middle finger to the meta. We're in a pretty bad spot right now; we have no identity and excel at nothing.

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Originally Posted by Furiea

well.. i'm done with SMN. the job is so useless when you screw up aetherflow or if you pump everything out for AOE dmg.

never thought i would be standing in the middle of the dungeon thinking "wow... without aetherflow... SMN's spells are worthless to cast and they have no aoe spells to spam"

not only SMN is still a DOT class but also a cooldown only class now.
SCH can still do a lot of things without aetherflow but SMN is useless without aetherflow.

LOL @ 230 potency 720MP Broil II vs 150 potency 1440 Ruin III that has a chance to be "upgraded" to 200 potency Ruin IV LOLOL

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I have to admit it's shameful to be outDPSed by a scholar in a dungeon where I find I'm out of aetherflow at certain moments. Lol at the fact that scholars got Quickened Aetherflow and miasma II but summoners didn't, cause scholars obviously need it more... you crack me up SE

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Originally Posted by ShaolinMike

Literally the ONLY reason I still main SMN as my caster DPS job is because I WANT to, NOT because of any benefit it provides to my party, NOT because of the DPS/utility it brings. It's strictly a middle finger to the meta. We're in a pretty bad spot right now; we have no identity and excel at nothing.

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I thought we did have identity as the "block our friend's view" class?

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Originally Posted by HolyGlassofWater

I thought we did have identity as the "block our friend's view" class?

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Yep, that sums up the life of pretty much every single SMN.

Every few minutes the SMN calls forth their mighty Blockhamut which then subsequently derps around following the summoner instead of attacking, dooming the vision of the entire party.

It then recedes into the aether to be replaced by the idiot midget ifrit that promptly casts devotion on the nearest healer while standing in every single AOE yelling "I'm helping!".

Well if u browse through archived posts of summoner, u will find there are so many requests from SMN asking for bigger size summon in the past despite developer having told them the limitations of such design. I'm kind of surprised what actually made SE gave in this time and gave SMN a big size bahamut and now the community all of sudden complained about the problem

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Originally Posted by MelvinK

Well if u browse through archived posts of summoner, u will find there are so many requests from SMN asking for bigger size summon in the past despite developer having told them the limitations of such design. I'm kind of surprised what actually made SE gave in this time and gave SMN a big size bahamut and now the community all of sudden complained about the problem

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They were hesitant to give large summons before bc it would block ppls view. They KNEW that but didn't accommodate for it when they released smn... further makes me believe that they didn't spend too much time on smn design:(

I think the new SMN is easy and simple and it's just a matter of getting used to if you've played SMN extensively before. My muscle memory about refilling Aetherflow ASAP while having 3 Aethertrail stacks still get to me and makes me mess up because now they just disappear if you do have Aethertrail stacks.

Also now it's just barebones and quite unforgiving if you die because of the requirements to summon Demi-Bahamut. The new skills SMN gets are really nothing new or interesting. Pet response still sucks and Demi-Bahamut's Wyrmwave is so clunky to me. The most boring thing ever is when you do AoEs, too.

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Originally Posted by MelvinK

Well if u browse through archived posts of summoner, u will find there are so many requests from SMN asking for bigger size summon in the past despite developer having told them the limitations of such design. I'm kind of surprised what actually made SE gave in this time and gave SMN a big size bahamut and now the community all of sudden complained about the problem

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If bahamut didn't have huge ass wings his size wouldn't be such a problem. Making garuda\ifrit like 30% bigger won't cover mechanics as much. And actually in o1-o3s it's not even that of a problem cause of how mechanics work.
Tho we should only blame SE for poor implementation of bahamut and nobody else...