5.0 SMN: Increasing the skill gap

Hello, I wanted to make this post for a while, but scapped it a few times.
I do want to put out my opinions now, so I will try to make it brief (relatively).

I think that going from SB to SHB, Summoner has become considerably harder to play.

The first thing you would notice is a significant increase in CPM. An increase I don't mind as much, actually during leveling, it was very enjoyable, and it does spice up the gameplay at lower levels, but I do notice it draws attention away from the fight, with practice this shouldn't be as bad.

Secondly, we now have a lot more timers to track, that each can drift apart individually. The aetherflow system is separate from trances, so you need to look at cooldowns for both. We then have an increased importance of DoT management, a slight mistiming can cost you a "festerruin" later on. We also have to keep our eyes on egi-assaults, not just looking if it's available, but actually plan ahead with them so it doesn't cap out during demi-summons or downtime.

When considering your DoTs, the current tri-disaster reset combined with the new trance system makes it very inflexible, clunky and punishing. Trying to align your dots with raid buffs additionally forces you to cut down your DWT, reducing your mobility in the process.

Considering mobility: Phoenix is a bitch. Unlike 4.x bahamut, you can't lock his movement by using off-gcds as you move around, which can end up costing you Scarlet Flame procs. The increased potency loss for using Ruin 2 also makes the job less mobile (this last change I support).

As a conclusion: The new summoner has a lot of different systems that don't really work together, and sometimes actively fight each other. We need to plan around more and hit more buttons. Meanwhile we have reduced mobility and a reduced flexibility to deal with downtime and adds. All that can be overwhelming, not just for new players, but even experienced players from SB.

Finally, something already addressed in http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ck-at-level-80. The nature of Energy Drain and Energy Syphon requiring a target hurts your ability to deal with downtime, and together with the new trance system, nerfs SMN's ability to take advantage of AoE situations in an opportunistic way without sacrificing the rest of your cycle. This is different now, thus fights with downtime would be tighter on execution and rotations can start to deviate drastically depending on downtime, composition and kill time, where gains can be pretty marginal due to the tradeoffs and execution factors. This makes it harder to plan around fights, and is no doubt frustrating when things turn out slightly different and you lose a lot of potency.

Having covered the issues with difficulty. Here are the main things I want to see addressed with the current summoner:
- DoT and tri-disaster reset jank. Please consider desyncing the resets from the trance cycle, or changing the trance cycle to not be exactly 60s apart. Ideally make it so it is optimal to place a hardcast dots before phoenix, since those gcds aren't affected by ruination.
- Festerruins. They make SMN weak against new targets and can be a major source of frustration, they also cause weird rotation stuff where triple weaves, hard clipping and even waiting around doing nothing for a bit can end up optimal. (and they also completely gut your dps in situations where you have a lot of players, as your dots won't apply)
- Phoenix rigidity and lack of mobility. I don't really like summoning phoenix, firebird trance by itself (pre-80) felt more satisfying to use, with the opportunities to use egi-assaults in that window. It also fights against devotion. Heck, I barely even see phoenix since it's big, spawns behind you and gets culled off the screen a lot (where is the /phoenixsize small?).
- Bahamut feels weak now it no longer interacts with off-gcds.

I have several ideas on how the issues can be fixed, but those I'll leave for another time.

EDIT: I posted some suggestions later on, here a TL;DR of that post:

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Originally Posted by Vulcwen

1. Reduce timers to track and downtime issues by putting trances behind the aetherflow cycle again. Energy Drain -> Energy Syphon as alternating skills every 30s, where energy drain grants a buff that allows you to enter a trance.
2. Reduce some pet clunk by making demis proc ww/sf right away again, reducing devotion's cooldown to 2m (at potential cost to the buff's potency) and normalize pet damage/potency to equal that of a player.
3. Fix DoT issues by bringing back the back-to-back tri-disaster reset by moving it from FBT to Summon Bahamut at level 72.
4. #deletefesterruins

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before fixing these major flaw, i hope they give us an option to lock bahamut and phoenix down in one place first, and only come to us whenever we use Heel

i don't ask for gap closer for SMN but atleast give us this option, do innocent ex fight with SMN is such a pain, sometime i receive like 4 or 5 sword mechanic in the round, other time i get none, so i techniquely have to delay demi summon to see if i get sword or not, if i use demi summon and get sword to the face mean that summon is waste since both bahamut and phoenix just panic and spin around as i move to avoid that mechanic

There are only a few things I personally think need to be done to the class that can reasonably be done with the class to make it feel good immediately without a complete rework:

• Reduce overall oGCD count, especially any of the 6 oGCDs on 30s timers, preferably by flat out removing energy drain, energy siphon, fester, and painflare, but keeping EA1 and 2. Consider merging Fester and Painflare with DWT so that DWT is a DPS increase like it has been in the past but without making DoTs ridiculous during this time.
• Make ruination easier to work with, castable innately on Miasma or Bio, or seriously consider just deleting it because, at 75% uptime, the natural rotation places 20 of 90 seconds of that during a window when you flat out cannot maintain it, and it's a lot of DPS over the course of a fight that I'd rather just have innately and not have to fight to keep. If Ruination is kept, consider dropping the 70+ traits to be acquired when ruination is acquired, at 52 when you get tri-disaster, and make it such that this is when Miasma/Bio can be hardcast to give ruination.
• Extend DoT times or reduce cooldown time of Trance to make it easier to flow and allow for minor amounts of clipping (3-6s) without screwing you out of 1-3 GCDs worth of +damage on ruin.
• Merge Demi-Bahamut into DWT, increase DWT duration to 20s post 70; summoning DB separately worked really well in SB, it feels very weird in ShB.
• Make it so demi summons will cast their Wyrmwaves and Scarlet Flames immediately instead of moving first. Movement shouldn't kill DPS because of bad pet AI.
• Make devotion cast regardless of which pet is out, including demi-summons. Having demi-summons forcibly delay Devotion is bad design, and the rotation naturally has Devotion come off cooldown during demi-phoenix, when it cannot be used. Better yet, just fix devotion to not be cast by the pet.

These aren't trivial changes, but the big thing to work on are fixing Summoner so that it has fewer things to keep track of, making DB not a stupid summon, and a couple quality of life changes here and there. Trances having awkward timing is okay. Not ideal, but okay. However, the way everything is awkward around trances also being awkward makes for a disjointed mess of a class that clashes heavily with itself, and the above should smooth it out until the devs can give SMN a major rework to make it the summoner that it's so close to being.

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

before fixing these major flaw, i hope they give us an option to lock bahamut and phoenix down in one place first, and only come to us whenever we use Heel

i don't ask for gap closer for SMN but atleast give us this option, do innocent ex fight with SMN is such a pain, sometime i receive like 4 or 5 sword mechanic in the round, other time i get none, so i techniquely have to delay demi summon to see if i get sword or not, if i use demi summon and get sword to the face mean that summon is waste since both bahamut and phoenix just panic and spin around as i move to avoid that mechanic

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You'd think 2 years is enough to fix a problem with moving demi summons... guess not
Doubt they'll fix it ever

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Originally Posted by Angry_Evil

You'd think 2 years is enough to fix a problem with moving demi summons... guess not
Doubt they'll fix it ever

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Especially since some of the Demi actions have a range of 100y, you'd think they would take advantage of this...

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Originally Posted by Angry_Evil

You'd think 2 years is enough to fix a problem with moving demi summons... guess not
Doubt they'll fix it ever

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well, i think that easy to fix than changing a whole SMN rotation for now

i can see they may separate the CD of DWT and FBT and change pot here and there, but pretty much we have to leave with this until next xpac to get other major overhaul for SMN

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

well, i think that easy to fix than changing a whole SMN rotation for now

i can see they may separate the CD of DWT and FBT and change pot here and there, but pretty much we have to leave with this until next xpac to get other major overhaul for SMN

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I think not only it's not easy to fix but probably IMPOSSIBLE cause there's no other explanation to why it still not done. Noodle code.

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Originally Posted by Angry_Evil

I think not only it's not easy to fix but probably IMPOSSIBLE cause there's no other explanation to why it still not done. Noodle code.

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you sure it impossible? or they don't wnt to fix it yet since they are focus on ShB at that point, now ShB is out of the way, time to to fix these small flaw then

It's harder to play now and has less mobility for no reward.

Currently even BLM has more mobility while being more consistent to play. BLM's entire damage justification was that they had to drop casts to do mechanics so it had to be higher. But now "Not RDM" doesn't get that same privilege at all.

Right now "Not RDM's" biggest problems are:

• Egi Assaults cost too much to weave. At certain points level wise it's a dps loss to even use them. That's a problem. Even aoe at higher levels is a dps loss to clip Outbursts for Garuda skills.

• Dreadwyrm Trance's Tri Disaster timing is flawed and can't be used right in practice without being able to be used on whim like SB's was. You don't ever gain your cooldown Tri and your Trance Tri, you will always lose part of one or drop your DoTs. This DOESN'T COMPLIMENT the new DoT requirement for your GCD at all. On top of just being awful in practice to do optimially.

• Various other clunky issues. Energy Drain timings. Phoenix dropping Scarlets. Firebird Trance 9th gcd dropping. A few more I can't remember right now.

I seem to be the odd man out, but I honestly do not like the new SMN at all really. Arcanist was where I started back in ARR, and SMN was my go-to DPS for a long time, but now it just feels really messy. There's so much going on with SMN's kit and it doesn't have any real synergy with itself.

You have your DoTs and Ruins doing one thing, your Egi's doing another, ED/ES rotation that now is completely disjointed from everything else in the kit, and your Trance cycles, which disable your ability to use several actions while your Demi Primals are out and about.

Honestly, I kinda would love to see them start from scratch with SMN. I don't mean literally make every ability different, but pick a focal point of SMN and rebuild the job around that one concept--making everything work in harmony with that focus.

tbf, SMN rotation become more complicate in this xpac, and the AoE which SMN is known to strong for now is not very important anymore since every job and their mother now can spam crapload of AoE skill while SMN stuck with broken rotation

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Originally Posted by ShariusTC

you sure it impossible? or they don't wnt to fix it yet since they are focus on ShB at that point, now ShB is out of the way, time to to fix these small flaw then

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And in SB they were focused on SB and in 6.0 they'll be focused on 6.0. If change was possible it would've been done already in 4.1 and if it was hard but doable it would've been done in new expansion WHICH IS NOW and its not done...
I was VERY surprised on ShB launch that there was basically no changes to bahamut responsiveness(actually it got worse lol)...

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Honestly, I kinda would love to see them start from scratch with SMN. I don't mean literally make every ability different, but pick a focal point of SMN and rebuild the job around that one concept--making everything work in harmony with that focus.

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And that focus should be the demi-primals. It should be the first major mechanic introduced to the class no later than level 30 (preferably sooner) and the class should be built around summoning and using GCDs/oGCDs to command them to do stuff. ShB improved the demi-primal aspect of the class....mostly, losing scarlet flames or wyrmwaves because of movement certainly isn't helping, but the class was improved in this aspect more than ruined.

Now this gameplay just needs to be turned into the class as a whole and the rotations built around it instead of it being tacked on. ShB is the closest SMN has been to feeling like a SMN, but it has a lot of legacy things just flat out ruining it at this point that need to be addressed.

Honestly there are a lot of problems with lack of consistency in the rotation. I do agree not being able to push phx/bahamut is a huge problem. With our current low dps it's obvious. I feel like they had a lot of good ideas. For example, pulling bane out of aetherflow. However, in practice the rotation does not feel good.

I'm a creature of habit, I've played summoner since 2005 starting in ffxi. I've seen all versions of summoner over the years. Let's say I wasn't married to summoner, I'd be swapping to blm or some other dps because honestly there's little incentive to stay right now. We get long cast times at interval but no major reward for those casts. IMO, there's likely one thing too many to juggle. It makes it a little less fluent compared to other classes who aren't dealing with so much. Can I juggle the extra commands to toggle. Yes, but I will almost exclusively play summoner and dedicate to the work it takes. However, considering the amount of glitch involved with pet interactions and demis, pushing that many buttons feels like an error to me. It's just more that can go wrong. I honestly can understand the trouble that the developers struggle with on our class. It's complicated. Ideally, the majority of our damage should likely come from pet commands and bahamut and phx. However, in practice with the glitchiness of pets that'll have to be handled very carefully. At this point, I just want a rotation that is fun, puts out good damage and doesn't feel like a chore. I wish I could give better feedback on how to fix it, but overall I'm not logical enough to handle that level of input. However, I do feel not being able to push phases is a problem. DWT, Bahamut, Phx, R3 phase without any flexibility will likely always give grief. I personally don't care if they gut the current rotation, I'm not in love with it. Overall, phoenix feels fun. I'm indifferent to the rest.

Honestly, the current rotation is very punishing to casual players. So yes, the skill ceiling is high. The cost of failing to perform is high as well.

At the very least, Nova, not having a consistent rotation is actually a flair of SMN I'd like to see somewhat kept. It's kind of had an inconsistent rotation basically since HW, and it changing styles as it progresses through the rotation is actually nice, since most rotations are very consistent and stable. In fact, the nature of how a summoner works in a grand FF sense suggests it should have a rotation that constantly changes and isn't consistent at all times, since different primals should behave in different styles just innately.

However, inconsistency should not justify grating or grinding. The rotation should be, if nothing else, consistently smooth. Which the rotation is anything but.

While levelling I actually enjoyed Summoner, but at max level and in extreme trials it’s an absolute nightmare trying to compete with other DPS without tunnel visioning. There are WAY too many different timers and buttons to keep track of that it feels more stressful than it’s worth to play. Instead of feeling rewarding it now just feels more messy and chaotic. It just feels like a flurry of buttons and not much bang for your buck. It really needs to be trimmed down to basics and built up from scratch. It’s such a mess of multiple themes, gauges and timers it just needs to be rebuilt from the beginning.

the rotation is just so freaking convoluted now, I love the direction we are going but this execution is pretty distasteful but it’s probably just growing pains for me that is.

I do wish the Demi summons would just sit still while I’m doing mechanics.

I'll agree about the demi summon's A.I. but the rotation feels very smooth to me. Rather enjoying this iteration of smn...

I changed up the rotation a lot, but it makes a lot of sense and I love it more than ever. You definitely need some extra spell speed and be ready to play it fast. The changes all do make sense. Focusing on the timers and why they are that way help. Ruination is key to the dos and i feel rules the rotation.

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Originally Posted by SwarleyMcSwarls

I'll agree about the demi summon's A.I. but the rotation feels very smooth to me. Rather enjoying this iteration of smn...

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LOL it will feel smooth until you discover that demis are bugged and don't do WWs if you attack right after you summoned them so you actually need to wait and not attack until it summoned and can do WW... I'm not even talking about all the clipping from optimal rotations. As always "intended" way of playing summoner is bad and people won't play like that.
Also do you really enjoy it tho? Do you REALLY like losing dps to moving or weaving? Do you like all the r4 stacking to weave and BLM cosplay while spamming ruin 3?

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Originally Posted by Alsandair_Sloan

I changed up the rotation a lot, but it makes a lot of sense and I love it more than ever. You definitely need some extra spell speed and be ready to play it fast. The changes all do make sense. Focusing on the timers and why they are that way help. Ruination is key to the dos and i feel rules the rotation.

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Think what you want but fester ruins do not make any sense...
How does sps help exactly?

there really doesn't feel like there's an actual reason for summon bahamut and dreadwyrm trance to be separate phases anymore

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Originally Posted by RadicalPesto

there really doesn't feel like there's an actual reason for summon bahamut and dreadwyrm trance to be separate phases anymore

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They have a reason. The devs really, really hate altering and especially removing abilities awarded via quests, doubly so if the quest reward itself is tied directly into the story of the class such as how Bahamut is. Altering this ability would both remove a button and massively change SMN's level 70 rotation, which the devs also don't like doing to classes regardless of how weird the change makes the class (See: black mage L50 v L60+ rotation). The devs need a very good reason to get over their innate reluctance, which they finally did in Shadowbringers by removing at least Aero 3 and Gauss Barrel despite them both being quest rewards.

To put some of my ideas on what should happen here now, also considering some other issues brought up so far.
These ideas are somewhat realistic for 5.1 or 5.2, not for the next minor patch, as they involve changes to how the job works mechanically. They still fit in the overall ShB design however.

1. Reducing the number of timers to track. (and improving downtime)
A solution for this would be to go back with gating trances behind the aetherflow system. Energy drain/syphon would be the main timer to track, and trances will be flexible within a 1m cycle.
This can be implemented by something like this:
Energy Drain: 100p ST, grants 2 aetherflow, 1 aethertrail and Syphon Ready, 30s cooldown
Energy Syphon: 200p 50% falloff AoE, grants 2 aetherflow, can only be used when Syphon Ready (consumes the buff), 30s cooldown (shared with ED).
Energy Syphon is thus an "upgrade" of Energy Drain, and you will alternate using ED and ES. This gives us 1 aethertrail buff every minute, which we can gate trances behind.
Both trances would have a 20s cooldown, and require aethertrail. The combat requirement can be removed from DWT.

This won't fix the issue with DoTs in an optimized situation (due to the desire to align both demi-summons with raid buffs), but it will give you flexibility and you may hold trances for a long time without loss to the cycle.
You will still need a target for ED and ES, and with them gating the trances, it'd be more frustrating to be unable to hit them. For that I'll bring a solution:
Aetherflow can be brought back as a sort of "tornado kick" function, you want to use it to keep your cycle going, but using it is a dps loss in a vacuum:
30s cooldown shared with ED and ES, grants 1 stack of aetherflow.
Additional: Grants another stack of aetherflow when Syphon Ready, Grants aethertrail and Syphon Ready when not.
Cannot be used out of combat (to prevent pre-pull stuff)

These changes are neutral on the number of buttons you have to bind.

2. Reducing Pet clunk:
Please make bahamut/phoenix proc ww/sf right after summoning again.
Also reduce the cooldown of Aetherpact (devotion) to 2 minutes so it can be weaved in DWT nicely. Can come at the cost of some of the buff's potency.
Egi Assaults aren't too bad, wouldn't change them. If anything, list the skill effects in the tooltip itself.
Also please normalize pet potencies to follow player potencies, it's time for that, and makes it easier to understand how much value an EA has.

3. DoT/Trance clunk.
The changes I suggested in 1. will have one major impact on the rotation: It makes the second minute full of downtime, as you'll be holding resources to build to a 30s offset reset rotation, so you can:
(actually starting around 2m) 0: phoenix tri, 30: dwt tri, 60: bahamut hardcast 90: natural tri
Things aren't ideal yet, you want your hardcast to be before phoenix, not before bahamut, so I suggest doing something else:
The 72 trait that gives you FBT, also gives summon bahamut a tri-d reset, but FBT itself won't.
Now we can get a situation where we have a comfortable back to back reset, allowing a hardcast before phoenix, and more flexibile DoT usage. This change will even work in isolation, independent of the changes suggested in 1.
(starting on-pull this time)
0: tri dwt, 13: tri deathflare bahamut, 43: tri, 73: hardcast fbt, 103: natural tri 133: repeat at 13

Of course, get rid of fester ruins anyway, even if the dot cycle is fixed. Or at the very least, remove it from Ruin 2 and Ruin 4, we should not have to suffer optimal clipping and even not rolling the gcd for a bit.
This CAN be a thing for the minor balance patch in 5.05.

TL;DR
1. Reduce timers to track and downtime issues by putting trances behind the aetherflow cycle again. Energy Drain -> Energy Syphon as alternating skills every 30s, where energy drain grants a buff that allows you to enter a trance.
2. Reduce some pet clunk by making demis proc ww/sf right away again, reducing devotion's cooldown to 2m (at potential cost to the buff's potency) and normalize pet damage/potency to equal that of a player.
3. Fix DoT issues by bringing back the back-to-back tri-disaster reset by moving it from FBT to Summon Bahamut at level 72.
4. #deletefesterruins

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Originally Posted by RadicalPesto

there really doesn't feel like there's an actual reason for summon bahamut and dreadwyrm trance to be separate phases anymore

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They are really awkward parts lol it feels like DWT is just rushed now if you follow the Balance discord rotation, and then bam Bahamut which even though he attacks on his own just seems like it’s missing something. Lol maybe I’m just crazy but I still love SMN

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Originally Posted by Aomine1992

They are really awkward parts lol it feels like DWT is just rushed now if you follow the Balance discord rotation, and then bam Bahamut which even though he attacks on his own just seems like it’s missing something. Lol maybe I’m just crazy but I still love SMN

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You're crazy, and nothing says you can't love a class despite how godawful its rotation is.

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Originally Posted by Taranok

You're crazy, and nothing says you can't love a class despite how godawful its rotation is.

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And Godawful it is lol! Here’s to hoping we get the same love we got in SB after the release of that travesty.

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Originally Posted by Aomine1992

And Godawful it is lol! Here’s to hoping we get the same love we got in SB after the release of that travesty.

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Welcome to SE's beta test >_>