Summoner's in 4.4 PVP and beyond.

So we've all see the patch notes for patch 4.4. Some QOL changes, some unnecessary buffs to classes that are already strong and STILL no summoner changes. Square why do you hate the class so much? When can we actually expect some sort of QOL or buff? Or is this your hint that you want to remove summoners from the game?

There are a variety of things you can do to rectify this situation:

First of all you can make bahamut ACTUALLY INSTANT. I mean honestly there are games where he ahk morns 5-6 seconds after I cast it and before anyone even asks yes Im standing right next to him. He is just too busy doing other things.

Secondly you can buff summoners by giving them actual utility and actual CC. The only CC we had was Tri-Bind and instead of fixing it (making it instant) you removed it and gave us wither. A 5 second 5% buff on all damage that requires a RANGE dps to go into MELEE range ?!!?!?! What really? Give me tri-bind back and make it instant.

Lastly bring back Garuda. Summoners staple in season 1-4 was AOE pressure otherwise BLM/MCH reigned king on single target. Bring that back. The fact that AOE pressure really doesn't exist in 4.x pvp is crazy. Its another element to the game that requires thought. Thoughts on positioning. Thoughts on running circles with your team. Bring back Garuda, Bane, Tri-disaster, Pain Flare. All abilities that never should of been removed.

Please Square summoners have suffered long enough for the past 4 seasons, don't make us suffer through another abysmal season with 0 change or QOL improvements.

/end rant.

I agree with all this. Another option is to make PVP Bahamut a self-buff (like dread trance) instead of a pet: Make PVP Bahamut a self-buff and give us the LB-three Bahamut wings. Doing this would be another way to fix the ability delay of pets.

If this requires lowering our damage for "balance", so be it - summoners just want predictably and consistently timed abilities!

Changes are definitely needed for SMN. I main SMN for PvP... started using the class during the first season of Aether League... and loved it. However, I noticed how difficult it is to coordinate with teammates because of the lag Bahamut has with Akh Morn (resulting from Bahamut's positioning). Wither is also a very risky ability, because it allows the opposing team to exploit the close range positioning required to use it. In other words, Wither is high risk and little to no reward.

We need skills and abilities in our toolkit that will put SMN on par with the other range DPS jobs, especially BLM. BLM has Night Wing (instant cast AoE sleep) and Swiftcast-to-Foul (near instant cast of Foul). I think the return of Tri-bind with an instant cast would be a suitable addition. Also important, a much needed instant cast of Akh Morn with no movement/positioning restrictions for Bahamut is especially necessary.

Note that I'm suggesting balancing the class based on an average BLM - I'm well aware that the player makes the job. However, the original poster is an amazing SMN, and I agree with him 100%... SMN needs some changes. Please look into SMN! Thank you.

I support this, smn always gets the shaft. What doesnt make any sense to me is why buff mch some more?

I have mained SMN 5 years and I can literally say it is the most boring job in pvp after 4.0.

I suspect the way akh morn works, and a lot of the issues with pet behavior in general are tied to fundamental ways pets are designed to behave in this game's combat system. PvE summoners have been complaining about this for a long long time to no avail.

When it comes to things like responsiveness, I'm not very confident it's something they can just fix like that. Best you can hope for is they give it the flamethrower treatment, where they just throw tons of potency at the skill because you can't change the fact that it's fundamentally a liability.

Out of burst mode, spells are insta-cast.

In burst mode, gain the power of a summon (no pets) and you have to hard cast a spell. Or you summon a minion on a target. Like a super dot.

For the love of all things good, make bahamut small for everyone already! The reasoning for it last time was bad, gets in the way of everyone and everything, an eyesore on screen. Bahamuts delay has ruined so many kill opportunities that simply shouldnt happen and wouldnt if I was on another job. Please rework it or fix its glaring issue, a job shouldn't be this clunky to play.

I mean they made scholar's pet instant so I don't see why summoners couldn't get the same treatment. One of the biggest things they suffer from in both PVE and PVP is delay. Regardless of it is intended or not, it make the class itself very unfun and just clunky. They simply need to make bahamut's skills instant as if it was a non-pet ability. Make him cast it immediately upon hitting his abilities and not delayed.

The biggest issues I see with smn:
-miasma is basically the key behind any smn pressure, but when trying to focus a target that's running away and LoSing you it can fall off without being able to maintain 100% uptime, if target swapping it needs to be cast, when hard swapping it needs to be up to use fester.
-you need miasma up on target for fester
-fester does no damage at all with no dots
-tri bind was removed forcing you to need to time LB much better
I would say make miasma instant cast like bards dots in a combo with bio, or make wither instantly apply both dots also, or even more extreme remove fester totally and replace it with a skill like painflare that's just a flat 1500 potency.

Damage as SMN is in an okay spot, the issue is the pressure and utility isn't necessarily there. I don't play Bard because I want to, I play it because I have a root and a silence as well as troubadour. I don't need the MS effect from Miasma when BRD pressure is simply that good. If Feast games were slower, a bit longer and the meta wasn't trying to 100-0 someone after a 5 second countdown, SMN would be far stronger. But even little things like not being able to peel sucks.

Don't forget the lack of defensive utility. Even when Energy Drain was a thing (the short recast let you spam it to recover HP while running away and taking damage), it made you sacrifice your burst for a small increase in survivability. RDM and BLM have movement abilities that let them quickly reposition out of range as well as CC abilities.

Another issue is Bahamut, being a separate entity means you need to maintain line of site twice (for you and for bahamut) for your burst. This is troublesome for a player, terrible for NPC AI. Bahamut should use player line of sight or ignore barriers altogether imo.

I feel like the pressure / AoE dmg thing Summoner does well is irrelevant given how important burst is nowadays. Games are shorter so pushing enemy healer MP is less impactful. Healers having a shorter CD on muse and other ways of recovering MP also make this aspect of Summoner worse.

Summoner's win condition is bringing the game to culling time. In Season 1 of the Feast, my whole strategy against BRD/MCH insta-kill CDs was to use notify my team and Virus on their burst (effectively negating one of their major damage buffs they waited for when bursting). This prevented deaths and stretched the game. Back then, there was no culling and it just created a disparity between healer MP, with the Summoner's healer MP usually being higher as the SMN was able to output a lot of AoE DMG.

Nowadays, SMN is able to push enemy healer MP and do significant AoE damage that is compounded in culling time. Enemy healer will fall behind and a kill will happen because the healer only has so many CDs and spread damage is un-healable damage due to low MP and increased damage taken. Unfortunately, this requires the enemy team to be unable to kill (especially a SMN who has poor defenses) and you as the SMN to be much better by avoiding dmg through positioning alone. It doesn't feel well-balanced, and I'm not sure what direction the team will take PVP SMN.

Very well said Nirokun. I agree with every point.

Spot on Nirokun, the thing is SMN is technically unique and strong, but the meta doesn't allow for it because kills are gained by 100-0ing things, not by pressure and rotting. And the more ahead you are, the weaker SMN gets because the burst is nothing to write home about especially with wither needing melee range and the ED nerfs. If you try to maintain that kind of pressure throughout a game you'll be OOM for the whole thing. With AST being able to spam abridged this does us no favors either. Currently the only chance you have as SMN in a competitive match like league is to delay and pressure until culling time and then go for a multikill with the healer, assuming you get it before your own healer dies to a single LB with 2-3 stacks. We have the right toolkit, it's just not strong enough.

So it looks like the 4.41 changes brought some improvements for summoner. Wither isn't a bad skill and now the CD is shorter which is the obvious one.

It looks like a few pseudobuffs for summoner though (and other casters to an extent). Shorter tank LB means you get at least 5 seconds of cometeor vulnerability instead of basically exchanging LB with enemy tank always.

Warrior holmgang synergize with wither and they both go great with cometeor. White mage assize also will synergize well with deathflare/akh morn/wither (especially if you can dot and wither two targets). Drk increased healing debuff will also make it harder for enemy healer when paired with a summoner using miasma.

Maybe I'm being too generous by saying these changes are all good for summoner, but in my opinion summoner is still very strong. Usually what holds back the summoner is melee who can't do any damage outside of burst. Summoner can still maintain very high damage and pressure the entire match and has a strong enough burst to force kills.

So smn is still in a bad spot. The reason why it’s bad is because of how clunky it is.

Bahamut still has a delay which leads to inconsistent burst and no cc at all. Every other role has some sort of cc and smn have nothing.

If they made Bahamut burst actually instant and gave us tribind back smn would be in a much better spot. But instead is still inconsistent therefore is pretty garbage in the current meta.

Summoner could really use some form of crowd control back.

buff summoner, we alsways lose when with a summoner, blm does nonstop barrage and rains fire while mch headshots everyone leading to ohk. like please... SE... please.

The state of SMN is very disappointing. I don't do much else than PvP when raid seasons are over and now that the job I like to play is no longer viable I don't see any reason to remain subbed during the slow patches.

What's even more disappointing is the lack of dev response. Oh WHM gets a bit stronger? Immediately tune Divine Benison. Summoner's been trash for like 4 seasons? No dev response and remove their only CC.

I tried to wait it out for a few seasons but it's been so un-fun now that I'm starting to move onto other games.

Summoner, Monk, Ninja, Scholar are the classes that seems worse then rest right now.
Dragoon and Samurai dominate the melee meta after the buffs they got.
WHM is dominating on the healing side now.
Ranged seemed all balanced expect Summoner they could use something,but knowing SE they will just end up overbuffing the class.

All SMN really needs is a CC. Every ranged DPS has at least one but SMN got theirs taken away with no replacement. The other problems lies in how awful Wyrmwave andd Enkindle Bahamut works, but that's both a PVP and PVE issue (except its easier to control it on PVE so it becomes reliable).

Hello Summoner friends (and Monk friends) (and Red mage friends) :)

In today's ARTV, Project Manager Moriguchi gave a couple explanations regarding the Patch 4.45 PvP changes made to Summoner, Monk and Red mage - let me share these with you!

=====

First of all, the main objective of the PvP action adjustments made in Patch 4.45 was to buff jobs with which it's relatively difficult to win, when compared to other jobs of the same role.

Summoner
The difficulty of winning as a Summoner is the lack of burst and survivability. As such, it has been decided to adjust the potency of Energy Drain to improve both burst and self-heal.
We are aware that some of you are requesting Tri-bind or any kind of CC ability to be (re-)added, as well as some changes to Bahamut, but for the moment we would like to see how this change to Energy Drain feels.
Please try it out and do let us know what you think!

Monk
Wind tackle is the only mobility skill for Monks and although it can be used twice in a row, it has a rather long cooldown. For this reason, it was shortened so that it could be used for both offensive and defensive purposes.

Red Mage
Shorter cast time for Vercure will enable a more usable emergency heal.
Since Red mages have to dive in melee range for their physical/burst combo, its potency has been increased to balance out that risk.

=====

And that's it! As usual, please let us know your feedback on these adjustments and we'll escalate it to the devs. Good luck in Season 11!

I don't often play Red Mage in PVP but it always felt like going into melee range was a death sentence. Thank you Kaposhipi for the updates!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kaposhipi

Hello Summoner friends (and Monk friends) (and Red mage friends) :)

In today's ARTV, Project Manager Moriguchi gave a couple explanations regarding the Patch 4.45 PvP changes made to Summoner, Monk and Red mage - let me share these with you!

=====

First of all, the main objective of the PvP action adjustments made in Patch 4.45 was to buff jobs with which it's relatively difficult to win, when compared to other jobs of the same role.

Summoner
The difficulty of winning as a Summoner is the lack of burst and survivability. As such, it has been decided to adjust the potency of Energy Drain to improve both burst and self-heal.
We are aware that some of you are requesting Tri-bind or any kind of CC ability to be (re-)added, as well as some changes to Bahamut, but for the moment we would like to see how this change to Energy Drain feels.
Please try it out and do let us know what you think!

Monk
Wind tackle is the only mobility skill for Monks and although it can be used twice in a row, it has a rather long cooldown. For this reason, it was shortened so that it could be used for both offensive and defensive purposes.

Red Mage
Shorter cast time for Vercure will enable a more usable emergency heal.
Since Red mages have to dive in melee range for their physical/burst combo, its potency has been increased to balance out that risk.

=====

And that's it! As usual, please let us know your feedback on these adjustments and we'll escalate it to the devs. Good luck in Season 11!

---

Whilst I appreciate the communication, you knew what SMNs were asking for but gave us something we didn't really ask for. Even after nerfing BRD's silence, SMN is still horribly behind in the utility department from every range. The damage isn't even that bad when Bahamut feels like actually responding, but buffing 250 potency to ED and then on the same wavelength buffing RDM to me changes nothing. SMN must go to melee range in Wither, there is not a lot of gain from the risk. RDM is melee/range based damage, SMN is a pure caster - so why are we in melee range?

This is why you should have given us a training break or a pre-season instead of just going straight into S10, you're asking me to test something on a live ladder, which isn't fair on me and isn't fair on people I get paired with nor is it for any other SMN.

SMN is still a joke with these new changes. Just give SMN a cc already.

The other 3 ranged have an escape ability (blank, repelling, rdm jumps, aethereal manip)

The other 3 ranged have a cc that can be used defensively (stun, bind, sleep, heavy, etc)

The cc the other 3 ranged have can be used offensively (stun, silence, sleep, etc)

SMN have NOTHING yet if they die while AF is on cooldown they are basically useless. There is basically zero room for any skilled play with SMN, there are no options on the table other than to do damage and run.

Also it is deceptive to look at the damage done at the end of the match by SMN. Sure it does damage, but it's useless damage in the game mode. The other jobs dump their damage in a burst on a single target, while SMN damage is all spread out and pointless.

You'd think that a job that is basically a sitting duck, takes huge penalties once killed, and has no offensive or defensive cc should at least have some midgare like burst, but no it does not.

And why is it still possible to LOS bahamut? You can literally negate half of a burst cycle from SMN by just LOSing bahamut, since it doesn't move and just twitches around when it can't see the target. As healer I've hidden from the entire duration of the bahamut summon. It's an absolute joke.

Can the devs please explain why SMN was designed this way? What secret power does it have that necessitates that it be so lacking in utility?

Being a SMN main dying to play this on ladder:
1) Being useless if you die with AE on CD - why can't ruin reduce AE CD? SCH still has this same weakness the difference is you can broil your aetherflow stacks if you don't have the cd, we don't have this.
2) Being able to cast on the move is nice, unfortunately unlike PvE where we hardcast out of DWT, PvP we hardcast IN DWT, why is such a relatively big CD so weak? We don't have tridisaster and thus don't even get any kind of reset from going into DWT. In fact aside from spamming ruin pressure (if you can even hit anything that doesn't instantly LoS you) you're better off getting out of it asap because the benefit from being in it is a damage increase that you can't make the most of (hardcasted ruins, no ruin procs, reapplying dots for a 5% damage increase is expensive etc - literally serves just to pop bahamut)
3) Speaking of bahamut, this is so painfully useless I'd rather just not have it and be buffed somewhere else. Having Akh Morn actually go off when you want it to is an absolute wildcard.
4) Going back to 1, I die. A lot. Even if I sit back there's no answer to the damage I take in because energy drain is weak and punishes your burst window for sustaining from it and I don't have any kind of snare or bind, I have to rely on tank/healer to peel. Healer won't peel because he'll be too busy spamming cures into me.
5) I don't have CC, I am literally useless compared to MCH, BRD and BLM who have better CC and more reliable burst and can run and peel - especially at the most crucial moment of the end of the game when I need to run and peel if winning.

Man I could go on but half of these reasons are enough as to chortle ungraciously at the state of the job. I remember a few seasons back when Lyegah hosted streamed and casted customs and people commented I was doing a lot of damage, yes I was getting 250k+ every game but most of it was useless tickling cleave from flare/morn and initial dots spread.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PotatoTree

Snip

---

Yeah when you compare SMN to something like RDM, SMN is an absolute joke. SMN pretty much doesn't even have a burst. Deathflare is only 2,100 potency with the Dreadwyrm buff and only 2,200 if you put yourself in danger and get a Wither in. And that debuff only lasts 5secs lol. So if I use max damage potential it will be 2,200 potency. Then comes Bahamut. There's a gap in between Deathflare and Akh Morn which is also only 2,000 potency and extremely unreliable and hard to time with a countdown. Then there's the issue with SMNs running out of MP trying to apply DoTs. Honestly why does something so important to SMN even cost MP? Especially when BRD DoTs are free?

I don't even play SMN but I do observe them and read tooltips so I can get a good idea of how bad it is.

RDM:

Compare SMN to RDM which throws out absurd numbers with no effort and a ton of speed. And has a free permanent 10% damage buff to apply on any enemy at will. With that buff the Enchanted combo with Corps-a-Corps and Displacement does 11,550 potency all in about 7 seconds. That's just insane. Then a RDM can casually throw around 3,575 potency every GCD by using Jolt II -> Impact. If you have Muse you can really abuse that. If you don't want to do that, you can just do the normal free combos that do 3,025. That's more than SMNs strongest attacks which both need gauge build-up to even use, all within one GCD. It's no wonder why RDMs do absolutely insane damage numbers by the end of the match. No DoTs, just pure DPS. And then they can heal when needed to. That can be the difference between a win or not.

BRD:

Compare SMN to BRD. First of all, BRD gets FREE DoTs. In Wanderer's Minuet BRD can use Akh Morn(Talking about Pitch Perfect) every 3 GCDs and having high sustained damage on the side without having to worry about any gauges. Heavy Shot -> Straight Shot, DoTs, Empyreal Arrow, Sidewinder. It has Troubadour with a 5% party-wide damage buff too. Then in Warden's Paeon you can open with 4,000 potency using Barrage if Straight Shot is up and you combo it with Empyreal Arrow. You can do it twice too! Adding Sidewinder to it making it 5,500 potency burst within 1 GCD. BRDs also tend to pull very very high numbers. And they have Repelling Shot to escape or bind melees/tank, Blunt Arrow to silence healers and 5% damage buff/5% damage taken reduced party buffs. SMN has nothing. I also play BRD whenever queues allow so I at least have experience playing it.

Compare all that to SMN who has no utility and it's burst is restricted to one reliable 2,200 potency and another unreliable 2,000 potency with other small attack damage spread out through 20secs. Spread damage like that is useless in Feast where you need damage RIGHT AWAY.

Honestly I'm not really sure how to fix SMN. It's concept just doesn't seem like it can work in Feast unless it gets massive buffs to Deathflare and Akh Morn. It's weird because despite all this stuff, I'm getting teamed up with SMN and MCH more often than BRDs and RDMs. Getting alot of BLMs though...

When I see BLM I go melee or stop queueing. I struggle so hard healing against BLM...