SMN 5.1 Job adjustments

how does everyone feel about the SMN 5.1 adjustments they announced today that will come out in 5.1?

Totally crap... taking away 2 ogcds adding 2 gcds... nough said.

I like that bane refreshed dots now.

However the removal of ruination from tri-disaster seems like a nerf to our dps. I don’t recall see any note about potency adjustments for it.

I’m no sure on the changes too the egi assaults. If it still has stacks of being changes to a gcd and sharing with our ruin cool down. I was hoping they just gave the skill back to pet and made them automatically do it again.

As always when it comes to SMN adjustments; disconnected from what the players want. Not gonna judge how it feels in terms of gameplay until I get to try it, but in terms of what a smooth and more importantly, a fun rotation should be like, it sounds bad. They didn't really go into detail though, so we'll see.
I couldn't even understand what the new effect of tridisaster is, does it do a certain amount of damage on top of applying dots? Does it work like a thundercloud, applying dots and inflicting the total amount of dmg miasma and bio do?

and no words about ifrit or egi atks in general... is also said : /

Well. I did forget. Their is a new effect to tri-disasters. It still applies the dots. Just no longer add ruination rebuff. Just sound like will do a burst Damage on top of applying the dots. Will it be enough to make up the removal of the debuff?

Making Egi Assaults into GCDs is much better than keeping them at 8 potency gains outside of Dreadwyrm Trance. They did the actual lowest ogcd damage in the game and deserved to be changed. Dreadwyrm Trance weaving them was fun, but damage wasn't there for how much effort it was. 100% the change that was needed. Just hope they actually remember about pet scaling and don't give us a gcd worse than our current one.

If Bane change fixes Trance/Tri then the 2 major sins of SMN are fixed and the job is playable again. Sub 80 would still be awful about that, however. If Trance/Tri is still a problem I still won't be able to enjoy playing it.

It's good news but still very much so a "wait and see" situation.

making egi assault into gcds it adds up the mobility/flexibilty loss we already gain with shb... while blackmage is warpmage now we are changing to the caster turret with every "adjustment"... how can u like that?

I’m all for waiting. An seeing how these changes are implemented. Less oGCD I need worry the better. So let see how it plays out.

Keep in my that those EGI is so clunky and buggy. Sometime the pet doesn't use the attack instantly and sometime it just puff in to thin air. This is so bad of a change, what the dev thinking putting that shitty EGI in instead of removing it. What about DEVOTION does it still attach to pet? FFS

Agreed. This is my opinion. I think stormblood version is smn best. Pets still had their set of skills they had. Which we could still control if needed to be. An we had our own set of skills. I felt that was our best build by far. That what I would like to see happen to the egi assault. Toss them back into the pet. And make it optional.

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Originally Posted by Neela

making egi assault into gcds it adds up the mobility/flexibilty loss we already gain with shb... while blackmage is warpmage now we are changing to the caster turret with every "adjustment"... how can u like that?

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They're insta cast.
So in best case they reduce Ruin2 use, because you can use them to weave/move instead (esp. if they're still on 2 stacks and you're able to delay their usage).

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

They're insta cast.
So in best case they reduce Ruin2 use, because you can use them to weave/move instead (esp. if they're still on 2 stacks and you're able to delay their usage).

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even if they stay insta what we don't know yet - we got nothing to weave afterwards : /

The translation in the discord that I saw said they were instant cast. As for what to weave, how about all of the other ogcd things that we have? Energy drain? Fester? Bane? Tri-disaster? Painflare? Dreadwyrm trance and death flare? Aetherpact (This one might be sketchy to use with egi assaults, we'll have to see)? Role actions like lucid dreaming and addle? We have plenty of things to still weave. Worst case scenario, it still makes you more mobile since you can use your Ruin IV's and the egi assaults for movement now.

Here's my akhmorning.com news post on the changes disclosed in the 55th Producer Live Letter.

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Originally Posted by Neela

even if they stay insta what we don't know yet - we got nothing to weave afterwards : /

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We still have Energy Drain and Fester, but better to have useful GCD spells and nothing to weave than a bunch of oGCD garbage barely worth using imo. Unless of course these 'spells' are tied to the egi in which case they just killed SMN for real.

I'm happy about the Tri-Disaster change. Feels awful having to burn a Tri before going into Phoenix and not being able to take advantage of the Ruination.

I think the new Egi Assaults are a good change if the potency increase is actually significant, preferably more than a Ruin III. It's going to be good for mobility since it'll be instant cast and would definitely reduce the busy-ness of the job. I was hoping they'd just kept it an ogcd, give us one stack and tripled the potency but this might be better.

I expected a bit more SMN changes though...

Am I still a slave to my pet cause aetherpact annoying only comes from egis, making the rotation still clunky....

At first I was like "what that's all ??" But thinking about it I see the potential to fix a lot of things.

- Reducing APM, and not having to use the procs to fish for, well, procs.
- 4 less ruin 3 per minute, replaced by the assaults ; a little less boredom GCD wise for fillers, and also giving 8 insta casts outside of trance granting mobility 60% of the time (counting the 6-8 GCDs in trance) ; you can plan your ruin 4 for bahamut weaving, or use 8 insta back to back for heavy movement phases.
- change from ruination to damage for TriD puts back a little snapshotting, as well as removing a feeling of clunkyness at phenix trance approach.

I just hope they really fix the damage gap between SMN / RDM / Range and the others (even just halve the current gap would be better than nothing).

Hard to say what to make of the changes until I can actually put them into practice. Having the EAs be on GCD might be pretty nice so I don't have to keep wasting Ruin IV procs during normal downtime and instead save them for when they might count more, like during Bahamut. The changes to Bane are nice, and steering away from Ruination reliance from Tri-Disaster could also be nice if damage is adjusted appropriately, but I still think adjustments need to be made either to the duration of DoTs or to the cooldown time on either Trance or Tri-disaster itself for single-targeting situations. There's still the issue of the rotation not really properly lining up with DoT durations, like before the first Phoenix phase. But I'll try to reserve judgment for now until the patch drops and we know for sure how everything will be adjusted.

I think the Egi Assaults to GCD just about killed the SMN's flow, especially if they're still linked to Ruin IV.

It feels like an incredibly tonedeaf decision to fix something that nobody thought or considered an issue.

I’m for the Egi Assault changes mainly because it’s more reliable than just Ruin IV. My primary concern is the potential to ghost their actions when weaving them into Bahamut. That .75s difference for being on the GCD will likely make Bahamut worse to summon but easier to manage once summoned. I hope the assaults themselves deal legitimate damage sourced from the Summoner in addition to their current effects too, otherwise I expect some people to miss their damage entirely trying to weave within the constraints of the current system, on top of the unchanged problems with Energy Drain and Tri-disaster being shifted to compensate for the instant damage.

It’s not what I personally would have focused on, but it is a good direction to take the job in, if they follow through properly.

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Originally Posted by EllieShadeflare

I think the Egi Assaults to GCD just about killed the SMN's flow, especially if they're still linked to Ruin IV.

It feels like an incredibly tonedeaf decision to fix something that nobody thought or considered an issue.

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I don't know if it's a solution, but the way egi assault worked and with R4, it's definitely one of the gripes most people had with smn, not "nobody considered an issue"

There's a few things that come to mind when thinking of this change.

First, is without a significant dps buff to the Egi Assaults, this is objectively worse than it being oGCD. Egi Assaults (specifically Ifrit) were already unwieldy, but moving them to a GCD is a significant step down unless it comes at a dps gain and/or being a central part of the identity of the class.

Second, if it still has charges and is still instant cast, it looks like it's just going to be Summoner's version of Gauss Round and Ricochet, but worse, because as stated previously they're GCD. This means its only purpose is replacing Ruin 2? Which is pretty damn underwhelming.

Third, the devs were against weaving it looks like due to ping problems, but my biggest issue with this whole idea is that they were already taking away the dots and identity of the SMN to begin with. If I don't get rewarded for dots, and everything else is flat damage, I'm just a BLM with a laggy pet. An inferior version of both BLM and RDM because I don't get rewarded for engaging with some of the biggest parts of the kit that get me to my big deeps (Bahamut/Phoenix).

I'm all for things changing to make the egi assaults integral to the combos we have, but the idea of them taking the assaults, putting them on GCD, and just going "There ya go" is a huge deterrent from me going back to the class, when I was already kinda bummed about how they play at 80.

Because of Egi's lagging, it's kinda weird to think about. So now instead of hitting Egi assault, getting Ifrit to the boss, and then waiting on Further Ruin to proc while using your regular cooldowns, you end up with this weird middle ground where you do a Ruin 3, Egi Assault, Ruin 3, Ruin 4??? another Egi assault?

I'm all for testing it when it comes out, but I'm still of the mind that ifrit needs to be single target ranged and Garuda needs to be AOE ranged and the system revolve around doing combos with your pet instead of this weird dumpster where all the rejected skills from other classes go to die.

It feels like they've decided to ignore most of our complaints and suggestions to improve the flow of the job (there were pretty good and reasonable ones btw) and went with whatever was more easy for them to do.

But, of course, I hope that these changes on SMN were properly tested and the rotation has finally a flow to it, because I don't want to stay with a broken job till the end of the expansion.

Hmm, well if they are making egi-assaults in a way like ruin 2 as a instant gcd, I'm curious on the potency of the ability itself. Will it be stronger on on par w/ ruin 2's? You still need to use then for ruin 4 stacks in the end. Overall, i'm curious to try it out. If it makes me to do less buttons, but by high on my DPS..I'm ok with it. Tri-disaster giving a potency dmg, something just tells me that it'll be 100 potency, but the full duration bane on multiple enemies, i'll take the change since they have to buff the potencies of the other spells.

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Originally Posted by EllieShadeflare

I think the Egi Assaults to GCD just about killed the SMN's flow, especially if they're still linked to Ruin IV.

It feels like an incredibly tonedeaf decision to fix something that nobody thought or considered an issue.

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The slow response of Egi Assaults and the inability to reliably weave two Egi Assaults into the same oGCD period without the second action wasting the first were very frequent SMN complaints upon Shadowbringer's release...

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

I’m for the Egi Assault changes mainly because it’s more reliable than just Ruin IV. My primary concern is the potential to ghost their actions when weaving them into Bahamut. That .75s difference for being on the GCD will likely make Bahamut worse to summon but easier to manage once summoned. I hope the assaults themselves deal legitimate damage sourced from the Summoner in addition to their current effects too, otherwise I expect some people to miss their damage entirely trying to weave within the constraints of the current system, on top of the unchanged problems with Energy Drain and Tri-disaster being shifted to compensate for the instant damage.

It’s not what I personally would have focused on, but it is a good direction to take the job in, if they follow through properly.

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They won't. These are band-aid changes to try to get the class usable, but I strongly suspect it will be a situation like Machinist in SB. That is, some people will really like the changes, but it will be a chaotic mess of a class still that needs more work done on it.

Which is fine. This is a mid-expansion change, I wasn't expecting a complete rework of the class, but it probably will still need one as the class is looking to be even more disjointed than it already was in terms of competing designs.

That said, in terms of overall flow, it does appear to be a massive, massive improvement. Even if Egi Assault is a spell you have to cast, it's not causing a GCD DPS loss to cast it, and since you'd only need 1 double weave of oGCDs between trances, it probably will feel better anyways.

But let's look at the changes:

• No ruination: Amazing
• Egi Assault no longer bloating oGCDs: Amazing
• Egi Assaults as a GCD, mixed bag, depends on if they keep charges and/or are instant: Cautiously optimistic.
• 100% chance of bane extending duration. Meh. For the most part I baned after refreshing DoTs anyways so this isn't exactly going to help, except to extend the duration after a primary mob is about to die? : Not exactly great, but not exactly terrible.
• No mention of Outburst potency changes: Cautiously optimistic, we'll see.
• No mention of any AI changes or fixes to make the pets not stupid: Here we go again.

I mean, we'll see, ultimately, how good the changes are. The class looks like it will at least not flow like crap though, and honestly that's about all I could have hoped for.

The community got what they asked for whether they like it or not.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

The community got what they asked for whether they like it or not.

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Not really lol this is only one part of the complaints where is the bigger one in my opinion was the fact that our Demi summons have to be hip to hip with us or they start ghosting attacks. Or aetherpact coming from the pet which delays almost all the time. This fixes busy part of the job and nothing more honestly. If anything Bahamut will just become even worse to summon then he already is.

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Originally Posted by Aomine1992

Not really lol this is only one part of the complaints where is the bigger one in my opinion was the fact that our Demi summons have to be hip to hip with us or they start ghosting attacks. Or aetherpact coming from the pet which delays almost all the time. This fixes busy part of the job and nothing more honestly. If anything Bahamut will just become even worse to summon then he already is.

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No, the biggest complaints on the boards where too many OGCDs, ability timers not lining up, DoT recast, and overall damage. Ruin/Dot Potency and Ruination are now gone and basically simplified with just direct damage rather than damage buff. EA's are now GCDs which prevents them from weaving. I assume Aetherpact is going to 120s. Ultimately SMN has been simplified from the original 5.0 release.

Question is though, will EA potency be greater than ruin 3 and weaving EA as an OGCD?

Will Bane recast be increased to balance the DoT refresh? Will TriD direct damage be AoE or wil Outburst be just boost to make up for the lose of Ruination?

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

The community got what they asked for whether they like it or not.

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Let's wait a little longer before we call another monkey's paw a fitting response to feedback... We have yet to see the potencies or any surrounding changes, unless I've just missed the link.

wait the patch note .

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

The slow response of Egi Assaults and the inability to reliably weave two Egi Assaults into the same oGCD period without the second action wasting the first were very frequent SMN complaints upon Shadowbringer's release...

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It was, but I noticed rather quickly that the Egi Assault actions themselves would resolve correctly if you allowed one hard cast GCD afterward. This did hurt their flexibility, but only thanks to the Demi Summons colliding poorly around times. The Egi actions themselves never ghosted without the interference of a Demi-summon. Whereas the Demi Summons can and will ghost thanks to movement in addition to their dodgy interactions with being summoned and dismissed.

My concern is whether this will still happen, only now we’ll be losing a whole cast for nothing.

You can still lose Egi Assault actions with certain pet command sequences, in fact that was the entire reason why infinite Aetherpact was even a thing, the clash resulted in the cooldown resetting allowing it to be reused over and over. That was then fixed. The problem with the new iteration of pet commands, SCH included, is that pet commands assign an Egi Assault buff from I to IV and it then processes the buff eventually once their gambits allow. It's fairly clunky of an implementation when you look deeper. Not to mention the inherent delay in pet gambits in relation to when the OGCD pet commands are finally recognised.

At least with the new intention with GCD EAs, being separated by the GCD gives enough time for the clashes to never happen EA to EA, but you'd still want to be mindful of say, doing EA into Aetherpact Enkindle. These are things we're going to be testing thoroughly when devising the updated 5.1 opener.

I'm intrigued how it will play with the new adjustments. They dont sound bad in theory so far. We will just have to see how everything lines up and what the numbers are.

For now though I'm not displeased.

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Originally Posted by Nemekh

You can still lose Egi Assault actions with certain pet command sequences, in fact that was the entire reason why infinite Aetherpact was even a thing, the clash resulted in the cooldown resetting allowing it to be reused over and over. That was then fixed. The problem with the new iteration of pet commands, SCH included, is that pet commands assign an Egi Assault buff from I to IV and it then processes the buff eventually once their gambits allow. It's fairly clunky of an implementation when you look deeper. Not to mention the inherent delay in pet gambits in relation to when the OGCD pet commands are finally recognised.

At least with the new intention with GCD EAs, being separated by the GCD gives enough time for the clashes to never happen EA to EA, but you'd still want to be mindful of say, doing EA into Aetherpact Enkindle. These are things we're going to be testing thoroughly when devising the updated 5.1 opener.

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Indeed, and it's actually going to be worse in general if you want to Enkindle and Aetherpact, simply because that's up to 4 separate commands right on top of each other. You can reasonably be expected to EA1->Aetherpact->Enkindle->EA2 and probably break the pets worse than they already are right now.

We'll ultimately see, but for now it's a point of possible concern.

Personally I like what i heard so far, I do have three main concerns.

1. Will the upfront damage tied to Tridisaster be enough to compensate for the loss of ruination?

2. Will outburst get increased potency, again to compensate for the loss of Ruination and the bane spread?

3.Will the damage on the new Egi-Assaults be worthwhile?

Overall, I'm a fan of what I heard so far, but I really need to see the potencies on the actions to know if I'll like it or not.

In the Live letter it said since the Pet OGCD will be GCD's their potency will increase because of the change. Instead of Tri disaster adding Ruination on the enemy it will be in turn just damage to the enemy. I think Bane was turned into a trait? Making it "Possible" to keep Dot's on mobs 100% of the time. Though we'll see in 9 days.

The Bane trait change is affecting this line:

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Additional Effect: 15% chance that Bio, Miasma, and Ruination durations reset if shorter than original effect duration

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To something along the lines of this.

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Additional Effect: 100% chance that Bio and Miasma durations reset if shorter than original effect duration

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If it's just this, then it is not iron jaws single target and only applies for the dots spread to targets around the source used for Bane. What this does mean is that it will be really good for 2 target situations and even more targets provided you can infer which spread target has the 100% strength DoTs to bane again off of.

However, we do not know if Bane's CD will remain as is and the snapshotting will need to be tested thoroughly.