Ideas for smn 7.0

In the games I've played if there was a role that involved doing damage thanks to one's fellow adventurers, I always jumped into it head first, I have a soft spot for summoners. The rework they've done is not so bad, there are an idea to enhance the concept of summoners, and the gimmick they made to not fill the smn with buttons I find interesting, but t's there for all to see that it's an incomplete work, but I don't think the designer(s) will touch it until the next expansion.

The basic concept, just for a brief introduction, is to introduce other elementals with casts in the "lego" phase and add resource management with elemental combos (eg: water + electric = additional effect).

If you already know how currently smn works, skip this -> *The current smn has elementals that are unlocked after summoning bahamut or phoenix. Each elemental basically has 2 attacks: Rite and Flow with different cast and recast times. An elemental can only be summoned once and can only be summoned again after bahamut/phoenix (basically after every minute).*


All elemental summons will have the same numbers, so I summarize them as:
summon: 500p, instant cast, 2.5s recast

Ifrit
ruby rite 450p, 2.8s cast, 3s recast x2
crimson 1 350p, instant cast, 2.5s recast (ice + fire combo additional effect -> DOT) (Flow 1)
crimson 2 400p, instant cast, 2.5s recast (Flow 2)
DOT combo 150p, instant cast, 3s recast x6

Titan
Topaz Rite 310p, instant cast, 2.5s recast x4
Buster 50p, instant cast, 1s recast x4 (wind + earth combo -> 40% maximum hp shield to all allies and assured critical hit on next spell) (Flow)

Garuda
Rite 190p, instant cast, 1.5s recast x4
Slip 420p, 3s cast, 3.5s recast (Flow)
Dot 30p, instant cast, 3s recast x6 (fire + wind combo -> additional 70p per tick)

Leviatan
Rite 460p, 3s cast, 3s recast x2
Flow 1 380p, 2.5s cast, 3s recast (electric + water combo -> reduce cast time and recast time by 30% for 30s )
Flow 2 380p, 1.5s cast, 2.5 recast

Shiva
Rite 320p, 1.5s cast, 2.5s recast x3
Flow 450p, 1.5s cast, 2.5s recast 12y cone (fire + ice combo -> additional 500p and next spell is cast immediatly)

Ramuh
Rite 190p, 1.5s cast,2s recast x2
Flow 300p, 4s cast,4s recast x1 (260p additional for each lithium rite used, 520p if in Water + Electric combo)

Having 3 more summons is a considerable buttons addition, which is why I thought it appropriate to add, thinking of the idea of the smn reading from the book its spells and evocations, an ogcd that switches from the ifrit-garuda-titan trio to shiva-leviathan-ramuh:
Turn page instant cast, 1s recast

Not a single predetermined path. watchword: CHOICES
One of the substantial problems that smn currently has is that the player follows a defined path: he has to use everything that glitters and everything its ok, just press them. He is not pushed to make choices. Summon one elemental -> use everything -> summon next elemental. The elementals are designed to end just in time for bahamut and phoenix, making the player miss the task of watching their cooldowns. It has a "perfect" rotation, but so perfect that the player can watch netfl*x in the meantime. So perfect that at the slightest interruption of the fight it atrociously misaligns itself from the party rotations.

Having many summons, which can all be used but not all of their abilities need to be used, allows the player to make pre/post or during the fight choices on which spells to use in order to best optimize his rotation based on the mechanics that the raid offers. Having summons that have casts allows you to better visualize which skills you can use or not during the mechanics, allowing for deeper planning of these.

As far as combos go, I thought I'd make sense of ruin 3 by putting the onus on it to act as a medium for combos.
So for each elemental, ruin 3 becomes element ruin 3 (example: Ice Ruin 3).
I would like to introduce the Elemental Stack. A Stack composed of up to 3 elements with the aim of adding effects to "Flow".

https://i.imgur.com/8W8M7xK.jpg

Excamotage to keep the focus high
Before, the smn in addition to its basic rotation, was busy managing the dots, managing ruin 4 stack and was busy managing pet placement. Every DPS has a gimmick to keep himself busy. Currently the smn has none of that, it has nothing.

The purpose of the combos is to make the player actively think about how to manage their resources while rotating. The important thing is to use them because they bring advantages, but it also opens up a world of optimizations for the hungriest smn, optimizations that currently don't exist. Based on how one plays it and thinks about optimizing, every minute the smn could vary its rotation based on mechanics, comps or personal preferences to obtain advantages. Resource management is the focal point to keep the player busy, interested and push him to do better.

In addition, I would like the phoenix heals to be a usable ogcd at almost any time that activates upon summoning phoenix, I would like to decide on my own when to use them, in the interest of the healers.

Test
I quickly made a small page to summarily test the idea. If you want to try it, it's here.

If you have come this far, I thank you for reading. I'd like to put my hands up if mathematically the abilities don't make sense, these ideas have been rattling around in my head for quite some time but it wasn't until today that I got around to drafting the abilities and I admit I put the potencies by feel, however it was a way to more or less share the ideas I have for the future of smn: a lot more casts, but the right mobility when the mechanics call for it, more decision choice (pre/post or during a fight) and a "minigame" to put a little more spice in the rotation.

I realized that writing so many numbers and so many combinations became complicated. So I modified proposing the combos and cases with an image, hoping that my idea is a little more understandable.
If you have questions, suggestions, comments, I'm available to have a comparison. Even to say that this idea is bad, I don't take it badly. I just wish the smn from the next expansion wasn't incomplete and monotonous as it is now.

Bring back Carbuncle/Egi auto-attack!

why not! when the elemental disappeard the carbuncle use auto-attack, or the elementals don't disappear and the attacks are performed by them and not directly by the smn when possible (with 2 option I could get emotional not ironically).
EDIT: before having the right observations, the second option would be interesting ONLY if the elemental didn't bring with it all the problems that the old pet management had, especially the ghosting. (eg: when a skill is activated, he executes it immediately, without random delays and strange queue management)

I just really want to get away from or have more than Ifrit Titan Garuda in the next expansion. In total we can only summon 5 entities and I am not sure any other game in the series has been so limited, except maybe XV which is not a game you'd want to emulate.

I agree, currently having only 3 elementals + bahamut + phoenix makes the smn lack of summons, but also too lack of options regarding the choices to be made in the fight, making it effectively bare in its gameplay ergo too monotonous. Adding the other elementals would certainly make it more interesting and would already be a great step forward, but in my opinion the rotation risks stagnating. I thought of elemental combos precisely to reduce the monotony of an almost always equal rotation: maybe in that fight for that mechanic there is a need for more mitigation to help healers; immediately after Bahamut I need to do burst damage and before entering the second buff enter the burst prepare myself to be able to place a powerful dot; or a combo burst damage immediately after bahamut/phoenix returning under the buff; perhaps playing with the change of the bpm (another thing that I personally find very funny and that could keep the player active) being able to use a dot and burst damage combo under buff; thus leading the player to think well what to do based also on the mechanics of the fight, keeping the player active.

Revert the changes and give us the summoner we had for over half a decade back?

Failing that, add auto-attack to Carbuncle, and then have Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda also perform auto-attacks while they are summoned. It will at least add the illusion of having the old summoner back which at this point, I'd take.

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Originally Posted by Palladiamors

Revert the changes and give us the summoner we had for over half a decade back?

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personally i prefer to play pok*mon and not summon ifrit and poison the boss (Don't get me wrong, I miss the old job, but the new core inspires me more, it really could be a core in line with a summoner, a summoner who summons dudes and uses their power). But currently the smn being that I find it incomplete, I find it a class that has never gone past level 60, maybe 50, a class that currently has absolutely no depth.

SMN should have gimmicks, which all jobs have, to make it deeper. Previously, the gimmicks of the smn were dot management, ruin 4 management, and pet placement. Currently, however, it does not have a single one. The smn desperately needs to have one.

However, this does not change the fact that the core is conceptually valid and that it gives you endless ways to deepen the class. But currently they leave smn at the mercy of boredom and its own incompleteness.

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Originally Posted by Palladiamors

Failing that, add auto-attack to Carbuncle, and then have Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda also perform auto-attacks while they are summoned. It will at least add the illusion of having the old summoner back which at this point, I'd take.

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I hope they will It does much more summoner. Clearly it should be more of a visual and conceptual thing than a practical one. I don't want ghosting. I don't want the attacks to start from a different queue.

But don't solve the sloppy gameplay that the smn currently has.

A concept like this would not function well within the environment of FFXIV. The main issue above all else is that, given that each of these choices is ultimately providing different DPS values, players will do the number crunching necessary to figure out which route is the "right" route. It's possible that certain routes have some sort of niche value, such as the barrier-generating path during prog, but what would happen is only 1 route would be viable 95% of the time. Just look at the pre-ShB egis for example. Either Ifrit or Garuda was the pet you'd use. Using the other was just an objectively worse decision, and Titan was exclusively a soloing pet. You'd be recreating the one thing that was properly fixed with SMN. And if your goal is that all of them and the combinations ultimately yield the same exact DPS values, then that is an astronomically difficult goal to balance when you're trying to balance 6 different summon phases and 7 different combination effects. And also, what would even be the point? Would it not feel incredibly empty to have a bunch of different choices that don't ultimately do anything different?

The inclusion of Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva summons is something that feels rather doable with this new landscape for SMN, but however they're included in the future will undoubtedly be just as structured as every other job in the game, such as having the SMN use them instead of Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda after Phoenix's phase, and then reverts back after Bahamut's phase. It's the most common suggestion I've seen people bring up and one that fits within the mold of the game.

Having said all that, I do think there's room to create some aspects of choice in SMN's kit to help give them a lot more flexibility. The suggestions I've brought up before would be two abilities added early on in SMN's leveling tree: one that can only be used when you have no gemstones to summon with, and Carbuncle bestows upon you a random Gemstone that lets you put off your next Bahamut/Phoenix phase; and the other which consumes all remaining gemstones to have Carbuncle perform an attack with a potency that increases based on the amount of gemstones consumed (the potency would be lower than each phase is worth, but gives you a way to make use of those unused gems if there's been a pause during the fight. Technically, neither of these concepts need to come from Carbuncle, but I also would like to see this concept of Carbuncle as your utility holder further expanded upon beyond just Radiant Aegis.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The main issue above all else is that, given that each of these choices is ultimately providing different DPS values, players will do the number crunching necessary to figure out which route is the "right" route.

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Absolutely. I'm the first to find the perfect rotation. But the mechanics and interruptions will lead the smn to have to vary its rotation adjusted based on the possibility or impossibility.

Also this way the elementals have a greater purpose and are used with true awareness and not just because they must be used and must use all of their attacks. For example Titan would be like a triplecast, ifrit has a gapcloser, Shiva allows you to slidecast easier.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

It's possible that certain routes have some sort of niche value, such as the barrier-generating path during prog, but what would happen is only 1 route would be viable 95% of the time.

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Yes, I agree with you. I wanted to differentiate the combos by adding something like Dismantle, but closer to sch, and so I thought about giving an important shield-mitigation for the missed personal damage but that's not enough.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

And if your goal is that all of them and the combinations ultimately yield the same exact DPS values

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Actually no, I don't want the various combos to have the same DPS, but clearly the variance has to be fair. The combos and summons, as I imagine them, are used making intertwining considerations: the comp, the interruptions, the mobility and the raid time.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Such as having the SMN use them instead of Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda after Phoenix's phase, and then reverts back after Bahamut's phase

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I hope they don't. Currently smn is boring also because is spoon-fed and in this way nothing change.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The suggestions I've brought up before would be two abilities added early on in SMN's leveling tree: one that can only be used when you have no gemstones to summon with, and Carbuncle bestows upon you a random Gemstone that lets you put off your next Bahamut/Phoenix phase

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This would be a really good workaround to fix the bad misalignment issue that currently has when buffs are delayed but in my opinion it doesn't solve that sense of boredom and bitterness that SMN players currently feel.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I also would like to see this concept of Carbuncle as your utility holder further expanded upon beyond just Radiant Aegis.

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You have raised an interesting point. The smn has lost the role of having to manage their own pet. In my opinion it would make sense to free it from the other summons and make it an entity of his own, give back the buff and give mechanics based on placement for example a rescue for you or for the selected target. In this way the smn can manage the pet again.

Sorry for the multiquote and thank you for taking the time to read my post.