[POLL] Do you think SE should remove the Aetherflow/Aethertrail Lockouts on Summoner?

http://www.strawpoll.me/14041065

Let's get a poll on this going, cause it's the primary complaint many SMNs who played the class extensively in Heavensward have. I want the community to show SE what they think.

Note: This is NOT saying we should remove/change Bahamut, or make any other adjustments to how SMN plays currently. Please consider only the lockouts when making your decision on the poll. However, this IS a critical reversion to how SMN played in 3.0, and it is worth discussing other changes alongside it with the player base as a whole here.

I personally believe this single change is critical to how SMN plays as a whole, and is necessary in order to balance the class long-term. I also believe Summon: Bahamut should have been integrated into DWT, with Akh Morn replacing Deathflare. As much as Yoshi-P disagrees, I think he should have stayed faithful to the rotation players adopted in HW, even if it wasn't his intention.

I think the Aetherflow lockout during DWT needs to be removed. It's a large part of why the class in Stormblood feels so clunky to play, especially for anybody that played it in Heavensward. It is the reason that it is optimal to cut your DWT short at times, because you need to get your Aetherflow on cooldown ASAP to line up Bahamut with raid cooldowns.

Personally I just want a SMN job with better summoning mechanics.

Trying to level SMN right now and my honest feelings on the class are that I wish they would just scrap all the SB changes and revert it back to how it was in HW. Everything feels horrible at level 61, more so than any other class at that level. The core mechanics feel bad, and I don't see them suddenly feeling good at 70. Maybe it'll get better as I level but aetherflow, tri-disaster, and dreadwyrm trance all feel unnecessarily clunky compared to HW where they felt good and the cooldowns all lined up nicely and didn't have bad interactions like they currently do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atomos

Personally I just want a SMN job with better summoning mechanics.

---

I'm largely okay with how Bahamut operates (aside from Wyrm Wave, which is a mostly-awful idea, that needs a lot better execution). I think incorporating him into DWT fits the bill nicely for how he should operate, though I wouldn't want the egis to get the same treatment unless it was during DWT. Even so, the pets have always been a let down. Even when they're given useful utility abilities, the delay to execute them makes them worse overall, and it would be better to give them damage instead. The delay applies doubly so when there's no room for error in SMN's rotation currently. They need to be scrapped and/or reworked long-term to function better, but that process is something SE is likely working on in the back end already.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atomos

Personally I just want a SMN job with better summoning mechanics.

---

This is irrelevant to the thread's topic.

On topic, I don't see why not. It's kinda weird that they made it the way it is.

I still instinctively hit Aetherflow while DWT is being used and I hate myself for it every time.

Giving this a bump, mostly cause I would like to hear thoughts from the minority here. Namely, the roughly 1/3rd of people who feel SMN should keep the lockouts.

I don't understand why they did it.

From the Stormblood changes, they're trying to force this new way on how to play Summoner instead of improving on how it played it in Heavensward. All it did was make it a HW BRD 2.0 which nobody likes.

To remove.
With the new lock outs in the heat of the battle, so many mishaps : Stimulation available for too long, hitting aetherflow by mistake while not the right time, but it was on CD...
Can't use an action because we're not in a (required) state : fine
Can't use an action because we ARE in a (positive) state : wtf, not fine

shortly put : enough with the lock outs please. It would greatly reduce the gap and would not buff the top so much, so it would be a perfect measure.

Yes, I want it back how it was in HW. This job feels so clunky to play..between the skills not going off despite me hitting them 10 times, "rewinding" after I hit them, and these lockouts..this class is very frustrating to play...

From the other perspective...

Back in HW when I hit Lvl. 60 SMN, I took one look at the rotation that had Aetherflow used in DWT and promptly threw it in the trash and never looked at it again. SMN was hard enough already and using Aetherflow in DWT made it even more complicated. Like, it had a 60 sec rotation that was mechanically the same every time (except for what buffs were available) and why was I trying to make the rotations "lopsided" by trying to cram in Aetherflow abilities into DWT every few rounds?

So I pretty much used Aetherflow outside of DWT almost exactly like we're doing right now. It meant that I could stretch the Atunment stacks out to 90 sec if I had to, which was better then risking loosing them (I thought).

Now granted, that was back when Aetherflow abilities had 10 sec CD time and Atunement stacks only lasted 30 sec. It might be different now. However, the only thing I've had to re-learn is using Aetherflow after DWT instead of before, and pretty much every class has some ability to relearn. So that's no biggie.

The best thing about the aetherflow lockout is that it gives *new* SMNs an idea of when to use their aetherflow correctly and gives the job a more obvious structure (and it's one of the worst jobs when it comes to structure). It also means that there's not some hidden rotation out there for people to go looking for so they can get really good at the job. Instead, everyone needs to practice the same thing.

From a job flavor standpoint, I like that the lockout is there. Using aetherflow stacks in DWT reminds me a lot of Machinest and how they dump all their oGCDs into Wildfire. We don't need two classes (both with pets!) to have that type of gameplay. So now we have one class that dumps all their oGCDs into a tiny window and one that cycles through three different "modes".

All I can say is that if we do get Aetherflow stacks in DWT back, I'm not going to be using them then. If I wanted to play a class that had a bunch of oGCDs crammed into a short period of time, I'd be playing Machinest instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

From the other perspective...

Back in HW when I hit Lvl. 60 SMN, I took one look at the rotation that had Aetherflow used in DWT and promptly threw it in the trash and never looked at it again. SMN was hard enough already and using Aetherflow in DWT made it even more complicated. Like, it had a 60 sec rotation that was mechanically the same every time (except for what buffs were available) and why was I trying to make the rotations "lopsided" by trying to cram in Aetherflow abilities into DWT every few rounds?

---

I'm curious what was hard about SMN originally? If you mean DoT management, then yeah, it was hard in ARR due to Bane being so limiting on AoE (4 target cap why) and the way DoTs lined up felt odd on 2-3 targets at times. Raging Strikes/Contagion demanded some frankly awkward optimization too (pop Bio first, Bio II, Miasma, near end apply Miasma II and reapply Bio, use Contagion to extend them all) that I never liked. Aetherflow felt strangely lacking (DoT refreshes to avoid dropping anything was a pain, and while using Fester during RS was great, it felt strange that there wasn't anything else to spend it on AoE wise). The class as a whole felt incomplete then. And SE fixed a lot of those issues come HW. And the rest? Not a fault of DWT. It was Contagion in particular that made things a mess.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

So I pretty much used Aetherflow outside of DWT almost exactly like we're doing right now. It meant that I could stretch the Attunment stacks out to 90 sec if I had to, which was better then risking loosing them (I thought).

Now granted, that was back when Aetherflow abilities had 10 sec CD time and Atunement stacks only lasted 30 sec. It might be different now. However, the only thing I've had to re-learn is using Aetherflow after DWT instead of before, and pretty much every class has some ability to relearn. So that's no biggie.

The best thing about the aetherflow lockout is that it gives *new* SMNs an idea of when to use their aetherflow correctly and gives the job a more obvious structure (and it's one of the worst jobs when it comes to structure). It also means that there's not some hidden rotation out there for people to go looking for so they can get really good at the job. Instead, everyone needs to practice the same thing.

---

The thing is, old DWT did that too. Pretty obviously too. While levelling in HW the minute I got DWT I read the tooltip and thought "Hey, I can use Tri-Disaster during this!" Then I looked at all of my other cooldowns and thought "Oh. My. God. This is gonna be ridiculous." Then I started trying it, and I loved it, cause it simply came together so well. The only unintuitive thing about old DWT was Aethertrail, but I felt the timer was the issue with that, not the rest of the class.

Also, Aethertrail Attunement still had some had flexibility in when you could use it too. Not as much as you had, but there were times when I popped two DWTs nearly back to back simply because I wouldn't get any value out of them otherwise (A1S comes to mind with its jumps, and essentially making you repeat your opener every time), and there were times when I tried to extend the buff longer so I could delay DWT to fit a burst window better. It was annoying, but necessary at the time. I'd rather not have the timer on Aethertrail at all either, so I can simply pick when to go off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

From a job flavor standpoint, I like that the lockout is there. Using aetherflow stacks in DWT reminds me a lot of Machinest and how they dump all their oGCDs into Wildfire. We don't need two classes (both with pets!) to have that type of gameplay. So now we have one class that dumps all their oGCDs into a tiny window and one that cycles through three different "modes".

All I can say is that if we do get Aetherflow stacks in DWT back, I'm not going to be using them then. If I wanted to play a class that had a bunch of oGCDs crammed into a short period of time, I'd be playing Machinest instead.

---

I'm of the opinion that Machinist and Summoner are sufficiently different already. SMN is a DoT focused class after all, while Machinist isn't. And its pets do more than autoattack with little/no thought (something I'd like more about SMN if the engine weren't so flawed thanks to its animation lock and server delay). The problems with Machinist at the moment are mostly in how its heat generation actually does nothing (It lines up too well. There's no reason to reduce your heat in any manner unless you stack too much skill speed, but DET/DHIT are way better for you atm) which inhibits its identity. The focus on Wildfire and bursting in that window is similar to SMN's DWT, but it loads the damage you deal during its duration into a single burst ability, rather than being a static boost that affects all of your damage applied during its window. To see how that matters, you need to know how Snapshotting works.

Snapshotting is basically a consequence of the engine. Every ability you use takes every applicable buff into account when you use it, even if that buff falls off later. It creates some nuances that differentiate DWT and Wildfire. Namely, with Wildfire you'd want to pre-dot the target with Lead Shot (back when MCH had it) before touching it, since it took the Lead Shot ticks that happened during its duration into account. Meanwhile DWT and Tri-Disaster works the opposite way, carrying DWT's boost to your DoT potency past its duration (Leadshot did this too with Raging Strikes/Hot Shot, which created some extra tension when setting up your RS/Wildfire window, which is probably the reason Lead Shot was removed). Contagion also took advantage of your snapshotted DoTs by extending them, but I'd rather have this version of it where it boosts your damage output than the extend, truth be told, even if the lockouts were removed. The reset fulfills the same purpose as contagion better, without treading into that awkward territory of "Extending this makes it better than Ruin so press it!!!" if we got another weak DoT like (old) Miasma II again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

snip

---

While I agree that it forces a structure to learn how things work, when you DO know it works and what the structure is since ARR/HS, it becomes a burden instead.

Picture 1 : Aetherflow is about 20sec before being available again. You’re about to hit transe, but boss jumps for 15s (example : gravity on O2S).
When you’re back at it, Aetherflow AND your trance are available : so you either ditch the second (trance > DF > AF), or wait a whole 16 seconds before using AF. It was not the case in HS, you could AF just anytime available and not lose precious seconds of it being available.

Picture 2 : To maximize Bahamut, you need aetherflow. When Bahamut is available, aetherflow is about 30 to 40 seconds on CD… so you wait and it just doesn’t feel flowish

Picture 3 : you forgot Stimulation for 15 seconds. When you see it, it’s time for Bahamut. So you wait after Bahamut and lost 20 seconds.

TL;DR : The lock outs are fine on a dummy, they’re a real pain in actual fights with mechanics, boss jumps and tweaks needed in the rotation. To play well you have to know EVERY fight. You can’t just go blind and do well because of the tweaks you need : the lockouts make you very vulnerable to them

In Heavensward, I found summoner complicated enough that I didn't even bother to get the basics down. Stormblood summoner is much more approachable to someone new to the class in terms of you have your aetherflow part, then you have your trance phase, and sometimes you have bahamut at the same time as your aetherflow.

I think there are things that don't fit quite right with the class, but I don't think the aetherflow lockout during dreadwyrm trance is what causes it. It is mostly a difference between what you are used to and the way it is now.

Sure thing. But someone who just follows the general pattern will not do a good job (very far from the top, as compared to another class doing the basics).

SMN right now is a precise timing of all skills, and just following the pattern without paying attention to the very precise moment a skill needs to be used has a huge impact on DPS.

That's what I'm calling out with the locks.

And honestly the basic pattern wasn't hard (and still is not). Prepare trance > enter trance. But maximizing was a lot less difficult in HS than it is now, especially in the heat of a fight.
What I'm calling out is that they wanted to reduce the skill gap and it ended up being the opposite, someone just doing the basics has never been so far from an optimal rotation guy

Let's take exemples of fights with not much adds (or very little DPS gained from it) :
HS A10S : 10% 1800 - 95% 2500 the top was doing 38% better
HS A11S : 10% 1800 - 95% 2500 the top was doing 37% better
Stormblood :
SB O1S : 10% 3300 - 95% 5400 the top is doing 63% better
SB O2S : 10% 3400 - 95% 5300 the top is doing 56% better

The skill gap has increased

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Karshan

What I'm calling out is that they wanted to reduce the skill gap and it ended up being the opposite,

---

I think you could make this argument about many of the dps classes, not just SMN, but I certainly agree with you. My experience as a healer main in HW was that the dps classes were quite complicated to learn. I'm not saying that they were necessarily hard to play once you're used to them, but they are quite complicated, at least when you start out and try to figure how all the bits fit together. Compare that to, say, red mage which is really simple to pick up and play and you'll understand what I mean.

I actually think I understand what you mean better now, though. There is no space in the rotation for overlaps and no slack to make up for delays in any part of it. I still think that there is more causing this problem than just the aetherflow/trance lock out.

I've played since 2.0 as smn....

I'm honestly fine with it as is. I adapted a good rotation to deal with it with almost perfect timing. Yeah sure i still have accidental button presses but really thats on me. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by number473

Snip

---

The other issues are in large part exacerbated by DWT/Aethertrail/Aetherflow's lockout. Rouse and Bahamut don't work together, while DWT and Rouse do, except you don't want to press Rouse during DWT, but before it. Contagion/Radiant Shield can be applied wherever you want within reason but are locked behind pet delays, meaning time spent setting them up delays everything else. Bahamut requires you to save Addle and wait for your next Aetherflow atm, but in the next patch you'll be pressing the former on CD after your first Bahamut phase, while waiting for the latter is unavoidable if you want to maximize your job, simply cause Bahamut isn't built into DWT itself.


And yes, HW SMN was complicated and had problems, but most of those were holdovers from ARR, while DWT highlighted them. They had too many major cooldowns to press in a short span. The different DoT durations were put there in ARR to make the rotation more interesting, and Contagion optimization that was also an awkward carryover from ARR. All of those problems were solved in the SB transition by consolidating Rouse/Spur and our DoTs to Bio/Miasma III, changing Contagion from an extend to a magic vul up, and removing Raging Strikes. Triple Fester would be an issue in the current DWT if the lockouts were removed, but honestly I could see increasing its duration to match Bahamut/Rouse to make that easier for people.

I am against it.

TL;DR background: I started playing FFXIV in the beginning of HW. In all games that I play, I really enjoy classes that progress through different phases or require lining up of CDs to get what I feel to be very satisfying burst phases.

At first, SMN never appealed to me... the class seemed to be focused on damage over time. I started as a DRG, their massive opener and burst potential throughout the fight was amazing. That said, when I got to HW I unlocked the MCH job. Ignoring the naysayers, I played it and loved it. In Stormblood, they derped both those classes... their skillfloors were raised incredibly and I found them to be boring due to their apparent lack of depth. The AoE of MCH no longer felt satisfying, the removal of grenado shot and the ability to multidot made the new MCH feel extremely repetitive and a drag to play in dungeons. Heck, they made MCH even more braindead to play by making it incredibly simple to manage the Heat Gauge due to the fact your barely generate enough heat to overheat in the first place, thus making "managing the heatgauge" so easy a monkey could do it (without using ammo, it takes 10 GCDs to overheat, much longer with)

Stormblood to me feels like 3.X MCH with 2 Wildfire phases. Maybe I enjoy the flow so much because I didn't give old summoner much of a chance, but I love the amount of depth and the immense potential this class has. Like MCH, SMN's damage is also gated behind a 60 sec CD: Aetherflow. They then have 3 phases they transition through in 20 second increments: Rouse, Bahamut, DWT. I love it. Its a class that has quite a bit to learn, but once you realize how it all works together everything just clicks and flows extraordinarily well.

That said, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by Aetherflow Lockout, but i can assume you mean the inability to make use of Aetherflow Stacks while in DWT. Which I am extremely happy about, because if you were able to use Aetherflow Stacks in DWT... you would every single time and not using a stack inside of DWT would be a substantial DPS loss unless you have a Bahamut Phase coming. Preventing the use of stacks while in DWT was a good decision, imo. Allows the class to have more flexibility. If you meant something else by Aetherflow lockout, mb. I'd be in favor of disabling the use of Aetherflow while in DWT that way mistakes don't happen?

That's exactly what we mean by lock outs. I repost here the inconvenience I identified a few posts earlier :

While I agree that it forces a structure to learn how things work, when you DO know it works and what the structure is since ARR/HS, it becomes a burden instead.

Picture 1 : Aetherflow is about 20sec before being available again. You’re about to hit transe, but boss jumps for 15s (example : gravity on O2S).
When you’re back at it, Aetherflow AND your trance are available : so you either ditch the second (trance > DF > AF), or wait a whole 16 seconds before using AF. It was not the case in HS, you could AF just anytime available and not lose precious seconds of it being available.

Picture 2 : To maximize Bahamut, you need aetherflow. When Bahamut is available, aetherflow is about 30 to 40 seconds on CD… so you wait and it just doesn’t feel flowish

Picture 3 : you forgot Stimulation for 15 seconds. When you see it, it’s time for Bahamut. So you wait after Bahamut and lost 20 seconds.

TL;DR : The lock outs are fine on a dummy, they’re a real pain in actual fights with mechanics, boss jumps and tweaks needed in the rotation. To play well you have to know EVERY fight. You can’t just go blind and do well because of the tweaks you need : the lockouts make you very vulnerable to them

I'd want to keep the Dreadwyrm Aether stacks at least, but I think that would be good enough.

Even so, the changes they did do in the past few days helped a great deal, I think.

They should leave it as it is.

You're literally asking for a buff, similar to BLM enabled to hold 2 'stacks' of foul or a RDM being able to use Manafication within their melee combo.

Sooo, since SMN is pretty well doing, this would mean either a) a nerf, like 175 pf, 250 fester or somethibg like that or b) back to a 30s timer on DWT stacks.

No, thanks.

SMN, even if you have to insta Deathflare a DWT now and then is the job profiting the most from downtimes, because AF is simply the strongest CD in the game.

Being able to have DWT + 3 stacks + AF from CD so you can go
DWT(incl. 3 Fester), followed by DWT(+AF), followed by Bahamut with 3 Fester
whenever boss is nice with downtimes

IS.. JUST... OP

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Music4Therapy

Snip.

---

I'm specifically referring to the inability for Aetherflow, DWT, and Aethertrail to exist independently of one another, with the ability to stack them at the same time if you choose to, exactly like they worked in HW, aside from the timer on Aethertrail back then.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Neophyte

Snip.

---

Yes, and I'm not saying there shouldn't be a nerf to compensate. I'd rather the flow be restored to what it was and our potency brought down again than the current system, regardless of the improvements made to their flow in this patch. It's pretty easy to do too. Painflare and Fester both get 50 potency nerfs, the former directly, the latter with an adjustment to 50 base + 100 per DoT on the target, and Rouse is removed. Done.

Hi, since the poll is both before and after the 4.1 adjustments, the earlier votes are based on the previous revision of the class.

It may be better to either re-start a vote, or my preference - let the latest changes run for a while and see how it goes.
Any suggestion then are based on longer playing time across different content/group/raid combinations.

No, I don't think they should remove the lockout. I've played SMN since 2.x and there are good reasons why they made that change. (For the record, 3.x was my favorite but I haven't tried out 4.1 yet.)

Previously, the decision of spending your Aetherflow in DWT was a calculated risk. Spending one gets your 30s timer rolling. Spending a second left you with a very narrow margin of error for refreshing with your last Aetherflow. For most players, this was actually a losing game. Don't believe me? Let's look at some numbers:

Using Fester in DWT was a potency gain of 20 (200 * .10).
Losing Deathflare was a loss of 440.
Losing 5 Ruin III upgrades was a loss of 660 ([200-80]*5*1.10).
It would take 55 ([440+660]/20) successful uses of Fester in DTW without dropping Aethertrail stacks later on to break even with dropping stacks just once. The number goes up if you add in Tri-Disaster/Contagion.

Even for reasonably good players, it was actually hard to come out ahead by cramming Festers into DWT in 3.x.

In 4.x, the Dev Team's stated goal was to lower the skill ceiling and raise the skill floor. Concurrent with the lockout, they also removed the 30s expiration of Aethertrail, which dramatically raised the floor. People seem to have forgotten how big of an issue dropped stacks were in 3.x.


The main issue with removing the lockout is how it would change the flow/rotation. Let us stop and think how the rotation would change: Spending Aetherflow on Fester in DWT would become the correct way to play SMN. Now that Ruin III is instant cast in DWT, Fester has a 5s cool down, and Aethertrail doesn't drop, it would be very easy to fit in all three Festers into DWT. There would be no tradeoffs or risks involved like there were in 3.x.

You might think that sounds great and are wondering why I am against it. Here's why: Aetherflow stacks give the SMN flexibility with burst DPS. Pigeon-holing SMNs into spending Aetherflow during DWT takes away that flexibility. Now that we can't burn extra mana to crank up the DPS with Ruin III, we don't really have anything else that affords us flexibility like that.

You might say, "if a phase is coming up where you need to burst, then you can just save your stacks." Now we are talking about raising the skill ceiling to where a SMN has to know what will happen in the next 60 seconds of a fight to plan their Aetherflow usage correctly.

"I just want the flexibility to refresh my Aetherflow if I'm late starting DWT." Taking into account the new meta of spending Aetherflow in DWT that would be created by removing the lockout, you would actually have the exact same amount of leeway in the rotation that we have currently.

Current: Refresh Aetherflow. 45s to spend and start DWT.
Proposed: Save DWT. Refresh Aetherflow. 45s to start DWT and spend Aetherflow in DWT.

Basically what this would do is change the rotation from "Spend Aetherflow > use DWT" to "Spend Aetherflow > save DWT until next Aetherflow is available." The current flow is what the Devs intended and I think it is better than what it would become if they removed the lockout.


For those situations where you are late in getting your DWT in, the opportunity cost of ending your DWT early with Deathflare has decreased dramatically in 4.1. You are no longer losing 5 Ruin III upgrades. You are only losing the 10% buff on 5 filler GCDs. Mathematically, it is now MUCH better to hit Deathflare early than to delay your Aetherflow and it's not that big of a DPS loss.

I try to base my opinions on real numbers whenever possible, so here's the math:
Tied to your Aetherflow are: 3 Festers, 1 Deathflare, and 1/2 Bahamut. Let's assume 11 Wyrm Waves with Bahamut. Keep in mind Bahamut's true potency is lower than advertised, which I will account for.

3 Festers: 600 = (3 x 200)
1 Deathflare: 440 = (400 *1.1 DWT bonus)
2 Akh Morns: 1046 = [(680 * 2)/1.3]
11 Wyrm Waves: 1354 = [(160 * 11)/1.3]
- Opportunity cost of 5 Garuda auto-attacks: 592 = [(110 * 7)/1.3]
Aetherflow Potency per second: 32.4/s = [(600+440)/60s + (1046+1354-592)/120s].

Ruin III potency gained in DWT: 13 = (130 * .10)
Ruin III in DWT potency gained per second: 5.2/s = (13 / 2.5s)

So if you delay Aetherflow to cast more Ruin IIIs in DWT, you are sacrificing 32.4/s to gain 5.2/s. In 4.0, the opportunity cost of losing Ruin III was much higher, at 26/s. [(150 * 1.1) - 100 = 65; (65/2.5s) = 26/s]. Ending DWT early for the sake of Aetherflow should not be the difficult decision it was in 4.0 because the DPS loss is now negligible.


TLDR: Lockout should not be removed. Removal would change SMN Rotation to save DWT until next Aetherflow is available. SMN would lose burst DPS flexibility because using Aetherflow outside DWT would be a DPS loss.
If Aetherflow cooldown is ready before DWT is finished, it is now better to use Deathflare quickly and refresh Aetherflow because of the Ruin/Ruin III changes in 4.1.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Teraluna

Snip.

---

The votes were around 100 or so when the preliminary patch notes were revealed and have maintained roughly the same ratio before and after the patch. Not removing the poll when opinions haven't swayed it yet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by giantslayer

Snip.

---

1) I haven't forgotten how artificially hard it was to fit everything in DWT, or how you had to micromanage the Aethertrail timer (also not hard). That was because Ruin III still had a full cast time, and people accepted the forced GCD clipping cause the reward was improving your burst window with TA and other raid buffs. Swiftcast alleviated some of that burden by letting you fit in your last Fester, Ruin III, and Deathflare within that one window. Depending on spell speed it was worth it since it took out a clip you otherwise would have in there that subsequently let you fit in Deathflare. The extra 1s of DWT in 4.0 would make that 2 fester clipping easier, but at the cost of even harder 3 Fester clipping, which I don't think would have been feasible without a Fester CD buff or an increase in DWT's length if 4.1 hadn't given us instant-cast Ruin III.

2) I am not a fan of these Ruin III changes either. I would prefer it if SE gave us something to think about outside DWT, but with Lucid Dreaming we simply can't have mana as our tension for that. It doesn't solve the issue of Ruin III being the only button we press most of the time. Something like RuinI/II/III/IV combos would have to be the equivalent.


3) The fact that it's worth it to drop DWT at all is a problem imo. It was the core ability of SMN in HW and Bahamut could have been integrated into that easily. DWT without the lockouts is also a better flow for the class because it sets the universal precedent that you're waiting on lining up Aetherflow with your CDs to optimize your damage. Bahamut already requires you to pigeon hole it by delaying it for your next aetherflow. Even with the lockouts removed, that still holds true. Having to delay DWT to do the same when Bahamut isn't available is the exact same thing, only without the lockouts it fits better with the opener by a long shot, cause you don't have to drop DWT anymore, you'll still be ready for Bahamut in time cause you got to press Aetherflow ahead of it.

4) The main issue with the lockout removal is Devotion and our pet buff have essentially replaced Spur/Raging Strikes as must press buttons during the pre-DWT period, and they will be further delayed by server issues. This is part of why the old Contagion worked better, but that caused more balance problems than it solved. The other thing is by restoring this inherent flexibility, you are now forced to line up Devotion with your cooldowns. It is 90s, and it is feasible to have it line up with an Aetherflow DWT or Bahamut window. Another reason to nerf it's CD I suppose, something that should happen anyways given the frankly legitimate complaints from other DPS classes about it.

5) A really important factor in all of this is AoE. That would get restored with these 4.1 changes, and that does bother me in some ways and not in others. For one, Tri-Bind would be over-buffed with these changes on top of it, because DWT Triple Painflare + Tri-bind is just worth more than Bane by a long shot, which still feels wrong to me. Bane should be the focus of our AoE, not Tri-Bind, and if these changes were made, it would leave me hopeful that SMN would steer back in that direction to equalize their burst/sustained AoE.

I didn't read the rest of the thread, but if I was tasked with adjusting Summoner as it stands now (in other words, not completely overhauling the job from the ground up which is absolutely what I would do if I had a magic wand), I would have made it so being within DWT gave you "infinite" Aetherflow and you could just fester three times and Painflare/Energy Drain as appropriate, and so that when Demi-Bahamut is summoned, it is treated like a DWT as well, so you can still get the instant cast Ruin III and Fester/Painflare "constantly" there too.

This, of course, would need proper balancing with the way the rest of the job works, needless to say.

My biggest issue in 4.0 was the lack of things to do in between DWT. We went from 4 DoT timers to manage down to 1. You have 30-45 seconds in the rotation where you're basically just spamming Ruin mindlessly while waiting for your next thing. To me, any change that makes that timeframe more boring (such as having to save your Aetherflow for DWT) is a step in the wrong direction.

The Ruin IV change is a good one. My complaint with 4.0 Ruin IV was that it required zero thought or action from the player. I would just be mindlessly spamming Ruin I/III and then a Ruin IV pops out every once in a while. Making it a proc on Ruin II instead means that it gives me something new to pay attention to (which we were sorely lacking with our DoT management cut down so far) and requires me to do something deliberately to activate.

Looking at the bigger picture, the Ruin I/III change was probably more intended to lighten the death penalty on SMN. This took the Ruin III potency out of DWT and spread it out over the entire rotation. It also removed the DPS penalty associated with losing all your MP and not being able to use Ruin III. If you look at the numbers I put up earlier, Bahamut adds about 1900 real potency worth of stuff, so the death penalty had increased rather dramatically in 4.0.

Of course, this change also reduced the non-Deathflare DPS of DWT enough to make it an easy decision to end DWT early to refresh Aetherflow. It doesn't feel like a perfect solution to the clunkiness of the opener, but it is a viable solution nonetheless. I totally understand how you feel your ideas would have been better, but if their solution is working reasonably well, the Devs are not going to backtrack on it to go a different direction. I think it is most productive to focus on what can be done going forward in light of the changes they've already implemented.


For the next round of SMN changes, I propose the following:

1. Make Wyrm Wave an auto attack.
This will fix the "why are we using Addle for DPS" issue and free up half of our Aetherflow from being pigeon-holed into Bahamut (which you correctly pointed out).

2. Make Bahamut take only one Bahamut Aether to summon and only able to do one Akh Morn per summoning.
The point of this is to lighten the death penalty and to reduce the amount of boring Ruin spam downtime.
This is how it works currently in PvP, and it's gotten rave reviews over there (I don't do PvP myself).

In terms of damage, combined with changing Wyrm Wave to a normal auto attack, this would be 7 Wyrm Waves and 1 Akh Morn per minute, but the opportunity cost of losing your normal pet's attacks doubles, so it would actually be a DPS loss of 223 potency over 2 minutes compared to 11 Wyrm Waves under current system. That would put the DPS output closer to what someone could currently do with 9 Wyrm Waves. They could adjust the numbers if that's too much of a DPS loss.
{[(11*160) - (7*110)] - 2[(7*160) - (7*110)]}/1.3 = 223

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by giantslayer

My biggest issue in 4.0 was the lack of things to do in between DWT. We went from 4 DoT timers to manage down to 1. You have 30-45 seconds in the rotation where you're basically just spamming Ruin mindlessly while waiting for your next thing. To me, any change that makes that timeframe more boring (such as having to save your Aetherflow for DWT) is a step in the wrong direction.

---

You don't save your Aetherflow for the next DWT. You use it when it aligns with DWT instead of having to wait for DWT to end. The current arrangement effectively increases the CD for Atherflow by whatever you last duration of DWT was. In the end by removing the lockout you will get more opportunities to enter DWT than the current setup that forces you to wait not only for Bahamut but also the end of DWT.

I definitely agree with your Bahamut item 1 and although I haven't thought about it as I don't PvP your second item would help the death penalty considerably. Neither however IMO change the need to remove the Aetherflow lockout. In fact it might help make up for the potential DPS loss you bring up.

Yes and no. Op post is about summoner mechanics, and so is mine.