How to Summoner, 6.0 edition

I saw a comment someone made about how "New SMN is so simple you could probably just put it into a macro."

Unfortunately, they were correct:

/ac "Energy Drain" <t>
/ac "Fester" <t>
/ac "Searing Light" <me>
/ac "Summon Bahamut" <t>
/ac "Astral Flow" <t>
/ac "Gemshine" <t>
/ac "Enkindle Bahamut" <t>
/ac "Summon Ifrit II" <t>
/ac "Summon Titan II" <t>
/ac "Summon Garuda II" <t>
/ac "Ruin IV" <t>
/ac "Lucid Dreaming" <me>
/ac "Addle" <t>
/ac "Ruin III" <t>

So there you go aspiring 6.0 Summoners! Slap that bad boy on 1 and never have to think again!

In all seriousness, it's depressing how close to optimal dps this macro actually gets me. a full 2m rotation vs a striking dummy was about 733,000 damage doing it manually versus about 720,000 using this macro.

Obviously anyone using this macro would be missing small nuances like Addle timing, making the most out of your weaves to make sure you're not clipping into your GCD, fight-specific avatar order for optimization of movement-heavy fights or phases, phoenix regen going on anyone other than you, but the fact that I can actually unironically give this macro to people and it *actually works well for the most part* is a really unfortunate testament to the current state of SMN.

I've been a player since 1.0 and a SMN main since it dropped in 2.0, and I was one of the players who was honestly super excited for the 6.0 changes. I hated being poison mage™ and while I prefer FFXI's persistent avatar design over the series norm of 1-and-done moves, I understand the decision and I think 6.0 SMN's aesthetic feel is *way* better than the poison mage we used to be.

But I just don't get why we had to go from one of the most complex classes to the least complex class. I really, desperately hope that SE adds more nuance to the class soon (let us choose between phoenix/baha for our 60s stance, give us more avatars that share roles but are better for different things like phoenix being supportish and baha being damage, ANY kind of fucking other utility that makes me actually think about what I'm doing).

I don't think it'll happen given the track record, but I can hope. In the mean time, maybe if they start seeing an influx of players using a single button macro and doing really well with it, they'll rethink the simplicity of the class...

Lol, Funny enough I tried to macro so it would swap my Ruin3 with Gemshine and swap Outburst with Precious Brilliance when I cast Summon Ruby, Summon Topaz or Summon Emerald. Obviously I decided against it in the long run because no action queing for GCD's with a macro, but I honest to god don't get why those are separate buttons, they function exactly the same as the demi replace does. I mean they were obviously thinking about it "Ruin Mastery III" and "Outburst Mastery II" in the traits, I don't see why you would name it that unless your original intent was to replace Ruin and Outburst. Possibly some technical reasoning prevented it. Idk.

I don't mind the one and done thing, I don't even care dots are gone, I just wish there was ... some sort of choice or decisions to make besides "sticky feet or fast feet" and "Lots of things or one thing" lol

There's a guy on youtube who made a slightly more complex series of macros to try and compensate for the action queuing, though it's still one button. He got some pretty high rankings with it.

SPOILER LEVEL 83 TRIAL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r3T1X0OXIU

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

There's a guy on youtube who made a slightly more complex series of macros to try and compensate for the action queuing, though it's still one button. He got some pretty high rankings with it.

SPOILER LEVEL 83 TRIAL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r3T1X0OXIU

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I don't know if I should be impressed or depressed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VentVanitas

I don't know if I should be impressed or depressed.

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Prob a little of both lol

Actually, it would look more like this

Quote:

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/macroicon "Ruin"
/hotbar change 7
/hotbar action "Ruin" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Searing Light" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Ruin" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Energy Drain" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Summon Bahamut" 7 1 <wait.2>
/hotbar action "Ruin" 7 1 <wait.2>
/hotbar action "Astral Flow" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Ruin" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Enkindle Bahamut" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Ruin" 7 1 <wait.9>
/hotbar change 8

/macroicon "Summon Titan"
/hotbar change 7
/hotbar action "Summon Titan" 7 1 <wait.3>
/hotbar action "Gemshine" 7 1 <wait.2>
/hotbar action "Astral Flow" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Gemshine" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Astral Flow" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Gemshine" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Astral Flow" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Gemshine" 7 1 <wait.2>
/hotbar action "Astral Flow" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar change 6

/macroicon "Summon Garuda"
/hotbar change 7
/hotbar action "Summon Garuda" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Swiftcast" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Astral Flow" 7 1 <wait.2>
/hotbar action "Fester" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action Gemshine 7 1 <wait.6>
/hotbar change 4

/micon "Summon Ruby"
/hotbar change 7
/hotbar action "Summon Ruby" 7 1 <wait.2>
/hotbar action "Gemshine" 7 1 <wait.3>
/hotbar action "Ruin IV" 7 1 <wait.2>
/hotbar action "Lucid Dreaming" 7 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar action "Gemshine" 7 1 <wait.2>
/hotbar action "Astral Flow" 7 1 <wait.6>
/hotbar change 3

/hotbar change 5

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And it would work, but it would be subpar. A good thing for someone who (because of carpal tunnel or other conditions) can't deal with the hectic twitch-weaving some other classes have, but it would do a lot less damage than it could.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shironeko_Narunyan

Actually, it would look more like this

And it would work, but it would be subpar. A good thing for someone who (because of carpal tunnel or other conditions) can't deal with the hectic twitch-weaving some other classes have, but it would do a lot less damage than it could.

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My point is that it, unfortunately does work. Surprisingly well. It's closer to optimal damage than you think, I literally used the macro in my original post in my in-game comparisons and ran through real content as well as striking dummy comparisons.

No, it's not optimal, and I'm not making that argument. But the fact that the damage difference between a one-button macro and optimal manual play is a like 5-15% difference in DPS is problematic in my eyes. (Actual number by the way, average is ~8% difference from the few checks I've done. Gap widened in more movement-heavy content but it wasn't by much.)

That low of a difference is what I dislike. There are plenty of optimizations you can do with macros to make it more optimal, but the point I'm making with this thread is that literally with a single, very simple copy-paste basic macro, you can perform the class at a mid-high level in the vast majority of content. That's too simple.

Nah, playing it with macros is too janky. Once a macro is started, anything can interrupt it. Another macro interrupts it, and movement does. You summon Ifrit, have to dodge an AOE, and now you have Ifrit hanging there not doing anything, waiting for the timer to tick out, so you can go to Bahamut. That's terrible, and not fun at all.

Conversely, RDM, you can close your eyes and repeat the same 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 X times, then go 6-7-8
I actually did that, played it without interface at the final boss of the 85er dungeon, and it worked nicely. Optimally? No, I hit and missed procs randomly, sometimes one fell off, but the gap was even narrower than in this SMN macro.

And that was with no macro at all.

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Originally Posted by Shironeko_Narunyan

Nah, playing it with macros is too janky. Once a macro is started, anything can interrupt it. Another macro interrupts it, and movement does. You summon Ifrit, have to dodge an AOE, and now you have Ifrit hanging there not doing anything, waiting for the timer to tick out, so you can go to Bahamut. That's terrible, and not fun at all.

Conversely, RDM, you can close your eyes and repeat the same 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 X times, then go 6-7-8
I actually did that, played it without interface at the final boss of the 85er dungeon, and it worked nicely. Optimally? No, I hit and missed procs randomly, sometimes one fell off, but the gap was even narrower than in this SMN macro.

And that was with no macro at all.

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I don't think you quite understand how my macro works. It's a priority list, not "hit it once and wait for all your actions to go off" macro, so it can't be interrupted. You repeatedly hit this button over and over, and only this button, and the order the abilities appear on the macro list is the priority in which they're executed. Because of how linear SMN's priorities are, a priority list is all you really need to be close to optimal.

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

I don't think you quite understand how my macro works. It's a priority list, not "hit it once and wait for all your actions to go off" macro, so it can't be interrupted. You repeatedly hit this button over and over, and only this button, and the order the abilities appear on the macro list is the priority in which they're executed. Because of how linear SMN's priorities are, a priority list is all you really need to be close to optimal.

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The macros I posted are one-button fire and forget. Press a button, wait for it to finish.
Seriously, you're trying to push an agenda here, and you're pushing too hard. In the end, it won't change a thing, anyway. How often have SE done a complete 180°?
Think of it as evolution: adapt or die. Because this is what it is.

And for the records, the SMN iteration I loved (ARR/HW) got replaced by the horrific DOT-juggling nightmare it became later on. The current version is the third completely different job vision by SE.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

I saw a comment someone made about how "New SMN is so simple you could probably just put it into a macro."

Unfortunately, they were correct:

/ac "Energy Drain" <t>
/ac "Fester" <t>
/ac "Searing Light" <me>
/ac "Summon Bahamut" <t>
/ac "Astral Flow" <t>
/ac "Gemshine" <t>
/ac "Enkindle Bahamut" <t>
/ac "Summon Ifrit II" <t>
/ac "Summon Titan II" <t>
/ac "Summon Garuda II" <t>
/ac "Ruin IV" <t>
/ac "Lucid Dreaming" <me>
/ac "Addle" <t>
/ac "Ruin III" <t>
/ac "Energy Drain" <t>
/ac "Fester" <t>
/ac "Searing Light" <me>
/ac "Astral Flow" <t>
/ac "Enkindle Bahamut" <t>
/ac "Lucid Dreaming" <me>
/ac "Addle" <t>

... making the most out of your weaves to make sure you're not clipping into your GCD...

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Move your oGCDs to the end of your macro, after the GCDs, so they don't delay your GCDs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shironeko_Narunyan

Actually, it would look more like this

And it would work, but it would be subpar. A good thing for someone who (because of carpal tunnel or other conditions) can't deal with the hectic twitch-weaving some other classes have, but it would do a lot less damage than it could.

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Fun fact, pressing a single button over several others is actually more harmful to the joints. Plus some of us have bought things to help us out with preventing joint-related injuries or at least alleviate it. So no, it's actually a bad thing and we're better off playing a class that doesn't have a single button to spam and requires more action.

There's a reason why people who suffered from RSI need to stop once in a while and stretch their hands. It's literally in the name, Repetitive Strain Injury.
Pressing a single button is very repetitive and I can tell, it hurts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shironeko_Narunyan

And for the records, the SMN iteration I loved (ARR/HW) got replaced by the horrific DOT-juggling nightmare it became later on.

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SMN had the most DoTs in its lifetime in ARR, and you did not have a single button to apply them back then.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Riusvell

Fun fact, pressing a single button over several others is actually more harmful to the joints. Plus some of us have bought things to help us out with preventing joint-related injuries or at least alleviate it. So no, it's actually a bad thing and we're better off playing a class that doesn't have a single button to spam and requires more action.

There's a reason why people who suffered from RSI need to stop once in a while and stretch their hands. It's literally in the name, Repetitive Strain Injury.
Pressing a single button is very repetitive and I can tell, it hurts.

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Yeah, only that in case of the macros I posted, you press it once, that's not "repeatedly".

Shiny animations, job perfect. Likes to the left :)

This is so depressing.

It really is. So many arguments that I see in SMN threads trying to give feedback on the job are "But it's a real summoner now! You summon things! Old Job bad, new job good!" And it's exceedingly frustrating.

Yes, the old poison mage aesthetic was not good for Summoner imo. I vastly prefer the new aesthetic. But having a good new aesthetic does not mean that the job's GAMEPLAY is good. SMN right now is a weaker caster (albeit consistent) that requires little to no nuance in anything we do, I was able to boil the job down into a single macro and still perform at a mid-high level.

I legitimately don't understand how anyone can look at that and say that new SMN is fine from a gameplay perspective when it's that dumbed down.

I also don't get how people think the DoTs got more complicated over time. In ARR we used to have Bio, Miasma, Shadow Flare, Miasma 2 (for aoe) and Thunder and each had to be cast individually. HW traded thunder for Bio 2 but also gave Tri-D, same amount but simpler. By SB+ShB we only had Bio and Miasma and they only had to be hardcast once per two minutes. They only ever got easier over time, especially after Garuda lost contagion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

I legitimately don't understand how anyone can look at that and say that new SMN is fine from a gameplay perspective when it's that dumbed down.

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I feel this on an emotional level sir. It makes me want to curl up in a ball and weep for humanity... Ok, well maybe not really but, ya... I feel it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Madoka

Snip

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Rip Shadowflare, forgot that was a thing.


What I don't get is why we can't have both, you know.. interesting game play interaction, with cool freaking summons? Why not Square? WHY NOT!? Why can I only have one or the other? I'm just saying these two things need to have a baby. That is all.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Imoen

What I don't get is why we can't have both, you know.. interesting game play interaction, with cool freaking summons? Why not Square? WHY NOT!? Why can I only have one or the other? I'm just saying these two things need to have a baby. That is all.

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We can have both, but some people here really believe we can't.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

There's a guy on youtube who made a slightly more complex series of macros to try and compensate for the action queuing, though it's still one button. He got some pretty high rankings with it.

SPOILER LEVEL 83 TRIAL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r3T1X0OXIU

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This is hilarious!

Now you get to feel how it is doing the healer DPS rotation. :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sol_Aureus

I saw a comment someone made about how "New SMN is so simple you could probably just put it into a macro."

Unfortunately, they were correct:

/ac "Energy Drain" <t>
/ac "Fester" <t>
/ac "Searing Light" <me>
/ac "Summon Bahamut" <t>
/ac "Astral Flow" <t>
/ac "Gemshine" <t>
/ac "Enkindle Bahamut" <t>
/ac "Summon Ifrit II" <t>
/ac "Summon Titan II" <t>
/ac "Summon Garuda II" <t>
/ac "Ruin IV" <t>
/ac "Lucid Dreaming" <me>
/ac "Addle" <t>
/ac "Ruin III" <t>

So there you go aspiring 6.0 Summoners! Slap that bad boy on 1 and never have to think again!

In all seriousness, it's depressing how close to optimal dps this macro actually gets me. a full 2m rotation vs a striking dummy was about 733,000 damage doing it manually versus about 720,000 using this macro.

Obviously anyone using this macro would be missing small nuances like Addle timing, making the most out of your weaves to make sure you're not clipping into your GCD, fight-specific avatar order for optimization of movement-heavy fights or phases, phoenix regen going on anyone other than you, but the fact that I can actually unironically give this macro to people and it *actually works well for the most part* is a really unfortunate testament to the current state of SMN.

I've been a player since 1.0 and a SMN main since it dropped in 2.0, and I was one of the players who was honestly super excited for the 6.0 changes. I hated being poison mage™ and while I prefer FFXI's persistent avatar design over the series norm of 1-and-done moves, I understand the decision and I think 6.0 SMN's aesthetic feel is *way* better than the poison mage we used to be.

But I just don't get why we had to go from one of the most complex classes to the least complex class. I really, desperately hope that SE adds more nuance to the class soon (let us choose between phoenix/baha for our 60s stance, give us more avatars that share roles but are better for different things like phoenix being supportish and baha being damage, ANY kind of fucking other utility that makes me actually think about what I'm doing).

I don't think it'll happen given the track record, but I can hope. In the mean time, maybe if they start seeing an influx of players using a single button macro and doing really well with it, they'll rethink the simplicity of the class...

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On YT some guy used a macro that swaps hotbars and the macro only drops a single GCD per minute. It's pretty close to optimal.

Personally the reason I wanted DoTs to stay was the iteration I was waiting for was the one where they add pet interactions with them. Even something as simple as SAM/NIN’s Gauges. Just change the trigger to the Egi auto attacks, and make the output the Primal avatars. The fact the input-reward structure of the current rotation is completely reversed and doesn’t actually involve/interact with the pets at all actively bothers me, though not nearly as much as the resummon mechanic itself.

Carby Reaper can’t come fast enough.