Summoner Ifrite dash needs a rework badly!

Summoners Ifrit dash in real raid content has more negatives than positives.., the dash is very hard to time for being real useful in real combat situations

but the animation lock hurts way more often than the dash hs actually useful..

I'm not talking about a few dungeons or dungeon bosses, that we occasionally do.., but in raiding, where we stick hours into fights.., there it feels more noticeable, that the animation lock disadvantage really starts to outweigh the dash advantages..

Imo completely get rid of the animation lock (and maybe add a ruin V, same potency & timer as ruin IV, but with a dash)

I agree.The dash as well as being mandatory, when in the vast majority it is not for the other classes, with the addition that it has the animation lock is just a nuisance. The ifrit phase as well as being the poorest one is also the most annoying one. Already in various posts of the smn it was discussed. Posts also created at EW release. I don't think this will ever be fixed, but I honestly hope it won't be their priority when they change the smn for 7.0 (if they ever touch it)

Ifrit is only the slightly interesting summon in summoner's rotation lol
You don't need to time it for "use" as a movement tool, but it exists for that option if you know a fight's timeline. The job is already by far the easiest DPS job, it doesn't need to be made any easier.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Ifrit is only the slightly interesting summon in summoner's rotation lol
You don't need to time it for "use" as a movement tool, but it exists for that option if you know a fight's timeline. The job is already by far the easiest DPS job, it doesn't need to be made any easier.

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Animation locks are just bad design...

and end raiding has no use for such a strictly timed dash in a rotation (therefore not usefull for real dash in moments like all other jobs with dashes)

... so as it is, it'ss kind of useless other than "lets start a 2 hit combo"

was really hyped seeing it back then in the EW reveal, but now in endgame raiding, it's more of an obsolete nuisance..

not to mention the moments its part of your rotation, and you have to use it; but don't want to move / dash.., it dashes should be OGCDs..., not part of a main rotation

Just move it around or swap it with titan. New summoner is so modular it barely makes any difference unless you're doing super optimised things in which case you'd probably not be complaining here.

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Originally Posted by Shiroe

Animation locks are just bad design...

and end raiding has no use for such a strictly timed dash in a rotation (therefore not usefull for real dash in moments like all other jobs with dashes)

... so as it is, it'ss kind of useless other than "lets start a 2 hit combo"

was really hyped seeing it back then in the EW reveal, but now in endgame raiding, it's more of an obsolete nuisance..

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Having a "caster" job that has 3-4 hard casted GCDs in its 60s loop is just bad design. I've done reclears of P8S on SMN when I didn't want to play Black Mage, and if you died to the dash or hardcasted Ruby Rites the answer is literally "Have a better plan for next time." There are many times I've been able to use it for movement in P8S and for pretty much every part of P8S outside of things like Octaflares, Nest of Firevipers w/ Snake (or whatever its called, it's been a while) or things like Limitless Desolation where you spread and have to move to your tower, you can and should be near the boss, minimizing the movement and animation lock at all. SMN needs all of its summons to have some slight thought in them like Ifrit, it might actually be fun to play if you actually had to think about your summons and why you were using them other than "dude lmao free movement titan swiftcast on slipstream lmao all this movement"

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Ifrit is only the slightly interesting summon in summoner's rotation lol
You don't need to time it for "use" as a movement tool, but it exists for that option if you know a fight's timeline. The job is already by far the easiest DPS job, it doesn't need to be made any easier.

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It's not that if you remove the animation lock from the dash you make smn easier, also because it's impossible to make it easier than now lol. It is an obligatory dash for its own sake, it brings nothing but its obligatory nature. It was only added because the smn was the only caster that didn't have a dash and it was added in a hurry. It would have been nice to have, for example, the dash on the position of the carbuncle, you made it more interesting and above all you didn't make it mandatory but an option. Currently it was put just to have the dash, implemented in a loose way to make it more of a nuisance than anything else.

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Originally Posted by Shiroe

not to mention the moments its part of your rotation, and you have to use it; but don't want to move / dash.., it dashes should be OGCDs..., not part of a main rotation

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You have one Ruin IV and one Ruin III to delay the dash if you use Ifrit at a bad time and you need to stay purposely out of range.



But as for the concept of it, I think it would have been cooler if using the Favors actually called forth the summons again instead of being spells cast by the summoner. That is, make Ifrit quickly poof in next to the SMN and dash to the target; on the followup make him briefly slam down out of the air. Have Garuda and Titan poof in momentarily to throw down a Slipstream or do the clappy thing.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Ifrit is only the slightly interesting summon in summoner's rotation lol
You don't need to time it for "use" as a movement tool, but it exists for that option if you know a fight's timeline. The job is already by far the easiest DPS job, it doesn't need to be made any easier.

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You can talk about easy or not all you want, but two other Jobs had this same issue:

RDM Displacement vs Engagement
NIN Fleeting Raiju vs Forked Raiju

In both cases, the Devs decided forcing movement and animation lock for DPS gain as a "trade off" was a bad design.

In RDM's case, Engagement was originally a "safer" move at a DPS loss. It's now DPS neutral with Displacement and the player is allowed to choose Displacement if they need to get away from the boss quickly or Engagement if they aren't, which is slightly optimal for uptime...entirely because it doesn't have an animation lock.

In NIN's case, it was originally a sort of 1-2 combo - just like SMN - and it was removed because it seemed bad game design between the forced gap close (whether or not the fight at the time was really conducive to gap closes) and the animation lock.

Not only that, it would make SMN LESS braindead to actually have a CHOICE. Imagine a world where Ifrit gives you 1 charge of Ifrit's Favor that can be used on either a gap closer (which grants "Gap Closer -2 Ready" and lets you hit the second strike) or you can spend it on a ranged attack using the Astral Flow button (which grants "Ranged Attack -2 Ready" and lets you hit the second, also ranged, strike). Heck, you could even make the ranged option a DPS loss so that in a few patches it will be turned to DPS neutral anyway because people decide it's bad design.

There are absolutely ways to do it that are smart design-wise, and even if it was merely made a flat ranged 1-2 attack, it's not like SMN having to deal with a random gap closer is exactly galaxy brain design anyway.

it's not about making class easier, it's about changing bad job design in double fold

saying animation locks on easier classes is a good thing, is a joke..

if the Ifrit dash were atleast something special, very useful or very strong, than an animation lock would be better accepted, but as it is now, it's VERY situational (in real raid situations often not available when needed, unless you change the rotation around just to get in a dash.., but on faster clears, different compa etc. that timing can change / be bad)

besides, its so bad, being part of a mandatory rotation, depending on the RNG mechanic you get, you sometimes really dont want to dash or cant afford an animation lock, but its not ogcd like other dashes are

Smn in real endgame has it's own issues to do well, even if its considered an easier job..,, but that dash in rotations & animation lock is just dumb and wasn't taken into consideration much for the latslest content (more like build for early EW content or easier content)

Just to clarify, I'm pretty sure the dash is not there to be useful as a movement tool — it would be OGCD in that case.

It's literally just to imitate things that Ifrit does in his encounter.

Garuda creates whirlwinds, so you get Slipstream as her Favor. Titan is infamous for clapping the Tank's cheeks with untelegraphed tankbusters, hence the 1-2 punch of Titan Favor.

The Ifrit Favor is probably just there to try to allude to Ifrit's dashes from his Trial, and to add some texture / variety to the rhythm and pacing of what SMN is doing. I don't think Ifrit Favor dash is intended to actually be useful. In fact, being inconvenient and needing to be played around is probably intentional.

That said, I also agree with the person who pointed out that Forked Raiju was incredibly annoying, and got removed (well, marginalized) for a reason: The sluggish GCD in FFXIV makes on-GCD forced movements feel awkward and difficult to manage, because you can't be responsive with them, and whether it works out is almost a roulette, unlike OGCD dashes that can be timed a lot more precisely.

I mean, yeah, the advice given earlier in this thread of, "Just rearrange it for later" is accurate in practice, but that's not really addressing how awkward it is to use... it's just postponing it until a time when you're not doing anything important. Which kind of highlights that it's a chore.

It would probably be more fun if Ifrit's Favor just gave you 3 clones of yourself (or Ifrit) that you could fire off in a straight line, in succession, by repeatedly pressing the button (probably as 1.50s quick GCDs). And it would still keep the "feel" of the Ifrit trial-mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Eorzean_username

It would probably be more fun if Ifrit's Favor just gave you 3 clones of yourself (or Ifrit) that you could fire off in a straight line, in succession, by repeatedly pressing the button (probably as 1.50s quick GCDs). And it would still keep the "feel" of the Ifrit trial-mechanic.

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It would be more fun if it wasn't so janky, actually.

I honestly dont think its thats terrible, sure you have to think about it and factor it in, but i've never had a fight where it actively stops me doing anything. Most of the time i just use it or movement/ shimmying about the boss, and if I need to run away i just slidecast r3 and / or r4 before I use it. Ultimately though, its just one of the few things, you actively have to consider if it comes at a bad time (though that can usually be resolved by r3 or swapping your lego about.)

Bottom line is, its annoying yeah, but it sits at the bottom of a very long list of other more pressing issues with the job.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

You have one Ruin IV and one Ruin III to delay the dash if you use Ifrit at a bad time and you need to stay purposely out of range.



But as for the concept of it, I think it would have been cooler if using the Favors actually called forth the summons again instead of being spells cast by the summoner. That is, make Ifrit quickly poof in next to the SMN and dash to the target; on the followup make him briefly slam down out of the air. Have Garuda and Titan poof in momentarily to throw down a Slipstream or do the clappy thing.

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Add onto this, that you can choose to dash at the beginning of the Ifrit phase rather than the end. With the GCD still spinning after you do the follow up to the dash, you can get somewhat out of range before needing to start casting a ruby rite, or use that ruin 4 for additional movement time.

Personally I've only ran into issues with the dash when I'm still learning a fight and figuring out when it's safe to use, or in some fights choosing to change up the order of the summons so I can be in garuda during particularly heavy movement phases rather than in ifrit, especially if it's coming off Phoenix phase where you don't lose any damage by switching up the order you use your summons (because no raid buffs)

Part of SMN's skill expression (now that it's the Yuumi of FFXIV, and I say this as a Yuumi and SMN main XD) is learning to time your Legos to the tune of fights. Did you die because you used your Garuda opener/Titan opener, therefore using your Ifrit dash earlier/later? Use a different opener, it's not hard to change. Did you die because you ifrit dashed during a mechanic that requires you to stay in place? Delay your Ifrit dash, either by using filler GCDs OR by changing when you enter Ifrit phase. If your rotation is optimal, you'll have 1 or 2 filler GCDs available to use without delaying your next phase change.

If you don't have that filler GCD available, then PEBKAC.

Currently the way the dash is done, you use it when you don't have to use the dash, because if you have to move you use titan or garuda and you have less risk. It's a heck of a nonsense! What kind of dash is that! Furthermore, having it mandatory in rotation is an even bigger counter-sense that doesn't allow you to DECIDE and express yourself in combat. In fact, currently the smn has decisions equal to 0. And I absolutely agree that there are much more serious things that should be resolved. For example why smn at 60 is more caster than at 90?. Or why does he have a cure he can use during only the 15 seconds of the phoenix?. Why does he still have phisick? or because he only has 3 elementals which doesn't allow him to have branches during the fight but has only one track?.

My dude, dragoon and warrior both have a burst with 4 or more dashes and they manage. I really don’t understand who benefits from making the job fully brain dead.

Sorry, but imagine basing the smn difficulty off a dash that sucks lol. it's sad enough. It shows how job is stupid to the highest levels, if the dash which is designed badly is instead considered as the only thing that makes it less braindead

I'd say the SMN as a whole needs a rework.

again

Honestly I’m going to get burned at the stake for saying but I like Summoner. Ifrit’s dash is admittedly annoying and it’s extremely simplistic overall, but I honestly wouldn’t call it unplayable unforgivable garbage that is so disgusting they should just end the game service immediately lol. I honestly don’t get what the hate is for. Because it’s boring? Healers have had to deal with that for literal years lol, and still get nothing from SE.

I mean yeah they removed the old Summoner but that’s happened to most jobs at some point? Bard gets a rework nearly every expansion and will likely get one in 7.0 lol. Are we going to start begging them to bring back a Bow Mage class too? (I’d be down for it). What about all the healers who would literally murder children to get Heavensward healers back? I feel like we need to be reasonable about our expectations lol.

I’m not saying it shouldn’t be heavily criticised. Phoenix, Everlasting Flight and Rekindle are some of the biggest red flags, why give a class healing capabilities that literally can’t be accessed outside a very short, specific window lol. But at the same time all I ever see is people begging them to delete the job again instead of trying to make the version they do have actually fun to play. Then even if they did delete and rework Summoner again, even if it was to the exact state it was in before, we’d still be right back to these exact same threads ( Summoner is unplayable garbage SE is doing this to spite us ), just from the admittedly tiny pool of people who do like current Summoner

Tl;dr I agree that Ifrit’s mobility is a bit annoying to use, I don’t know if reworking it entirely would do much though since at least it’s interesting to plan out / use. But also I think a lot of Summoner players need to understand that SE always reworks jobs to various extents and have literally never went back on it. The closest they ever got was when they tried to remove Energy Drain from Scholars and it caused a civil war so they immediately put it back. I mean, if they were going to ‘undo’ a job rework for anyone, I’m pretty sure healers would be first in line considering the literal thousands of posts and threads complaining about them since Shadowbringers (or Stormblood depending on when you started)

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Originally Posted by Tamaerl

I'd say the SMN as a whole needs a rework.

again

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uhmm I don't really agree.

Currently the main problem with the smn is that it should have already had more summons and plumping up its rotation. Currently it is a class at 60 with skills with very high potency to make up for the lack of skills. (Attention: I don't mean buttons, I mean skills. I really like the trick they found to not fill the class with buttons).
It should not have kept the same problems it had in shB with the phoenix. With the fact that the carbuncle is tied to elementals, it deprives it of any utility except for shielding, even moving the pet no longer serves any purpose because it has lost the buff (clearly as long as the carbuncle remains tied to elementals, it is only fair that the buff is of the smn). That's why I say the smn's dash sucks is the least of the problems (even if it does).

The problem with the smn is that they took away a job (with its problems, which ironically worked with this meta) to create a new one but left it half-finished, because it is factual that it was left incomplete for who knows what strange reason.

It does not need a rework, it would have needed to be completed.

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Originally Posted by Tamaerl

I'd say the SMN as a whole needs a rework.

again

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Absolutely. This was a failed experiment and it needs to be tossed out and redone. Destroying 80% if a job thats been around for over half a decade was a stupid move.

Yes the summoner is extremely easy to play, but the fact that he has a gapcloser imposed in his DPS rotation is something that makes him less braindead than a gapcloser that wouldn't necessarily be in ifrit's combo and which could be useful when the player wants to use it?.

The answer is obviously no, a gapcloser imposed in a rotation is not difficulty, but just bad job design which makes the usefulness of the gapcloser completely random and it is a choice which makes the job even more rigid than 'it is not already, no matter what job it is, the imposed gapclosers are quite simply a design error, or rather a design facility...

To make the summoner '' less braindead '', it would be necessary to redo certain mechanisms in his rotation, especially on the duration of the elemental summon GCD which makes the gameplay particularly slow and redundant, and to add a new resource to manage more interesting than the etherflow which have become literally obsolete and uninteresting in the gameplay.

What a load of mushroomfeed. It’s literally something you need to plan around, how is that anything other than the skill floor? Should I claim that bahanix needs to give seven stacks of ruin3 because it’s possible to not press it enough? Should I claim that not being careful enough with your gauge management, leading you to be unable to use upheaval or kaiten when needed is a job flaw? (The answer is no if you’re not good at reading subtext)

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Originally Posted by fulminating

What a load of mushroomfeed. It’s literally something you need to plan around, how is that anything other than the skill floor? Should I claim that bahanix needs to give seven stacks of ruin3 because it’s possible to not press it enough? Should I claim that not being careful enough with your gauge management, leading you to be unable to use upheaval or kaiten when needed is a job flaw? (The answer is no if you’re not good at reading subtext)

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You use dash when you don't have to dash, the end. What a great freaking ability.

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Originally Posted by Ggwppino

You use dash when you don't have to dash, the end. What a great freaking ability.

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once again I direct you to warrior

the Ifrit rotation is already planned around, either when you actually have time to safely hardcast.. or when buffs are not up...
the fact it's part of a rotation is bad design.. having to move a whole rotation part to be rdy for a dash is crap.., and especially in harder content, where there are a lot of RNG mechanics, you willl occasionally need a dash on the go
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in dungeons, against dungeon bosses, some extreme trials, it's actually not that much of a problem.., but im savage & ultimate it becomes redundant or a hindrance (animation lock.., or you need to stand still for a RNG mechanic you just got, so you end up ruin4, ruin4 otherwise youll dash / move out of your space..
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there are enough reasons, why putting a dash built in a rotation is bad design...

..., if you want Snm to be more challenging, than just add a dot to it (fast fix, untill it gets reworked again), but give us an ogcd dash (let it share ruin4..,similar like Rdm has its dash shard with a static skill)

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Originally Posted by fulminating

What a load of mushroomfeed. It’s literally something you need to plan around, how is that anything other than the skill floor? Should I claim that bahanix needs to give seven stacks of ruin3 because it’s possible to not press it enough? Should I claim that not being careful enough with your gauge management, leading you to be unable to use upheaval or kaiten when needed is a job flaw? (The answer is no if you’re not good at reading subtext)

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Which of those things is on the GCD and animation locks you?

Primal rend

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Originally Posted by fulminating

What a load of mushroomfeed. It’s literally something you need to plan around, how is that anything other than the skill floor? Should I claim that bahanix needs to give seven stacks of ruin3 because it’s possible to not press it enough? Should I claim that not being careful enough with your gauge management, leading you to be unable to use upheaval or kaiten when needed is a job flaw? (The answer is no if you’re not good at reading subtext)

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Primal rend

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I meant which of Bahamut/Ruin 3, Upheaval, or Kaiten is an animation lock.

You have exactly one, Primal Rend, which has a 30 second window it can be used in, and can be used anytime under the 2 min raid buff window when aligning it, and is naturally aligned to it based in Inner Release's CD, which has no preconditions (no gauge requirement to use it or etc) and is naturally aligned with all burst windows by using it on CD after the opener. When you use Inner Release, if it's a bad time to use Primal Rend, you can push it as much as 30 seconds. That is, Primal Rend is arguably far more flexible than Crimson Strike is. Oh, and WAR has 3 other gap closers that are oGCD and not tied to anything other than a natural CD, meaning they can be held and used when needed without requiring any part of the rotation. WAR has the most gapclosers in the game, and the most flexibility in their use.

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EDIT: Yes, you can argue that you can hold Ifrit's Favor for up to 30 seconds as well, but only if you actively stop your overall rotation (don't use any additional Summons or Demis), while WAR can chug along its rotation happy as you please until it finds a good time to slot in Primal Rend.

Oh good you're already aware that you have ~3 + ~3 + ~2.5 + ~2.5 seconds you can shuffle the gap closer around in, and since you're not trying to stuff it under raid buffs you have even more flexibility. There has to be some very compelling reason to turn a 50k primal rend into a 35k one, so the vast majority of the time it's going to be used in the buff overlap. Odd minutes you have more flexibility, but also nothing happens because they put all the mechanics on the even burst window for artificial difficulty. I'm also going to disagree with you a bit on the onslaughts, under ideal circumstances it's 3 per even minute/1 per odd which doesn't leave as much flexibility as it initially sounds like. I'm not going to pretend to like that it's no longer on the gauge though, a change which has reduced the amount of planning required.

I think I'll also disagree on warrior having the most gap closers- that award either goes to dragoon (2x spineshatter, dragonfire, stargazer and I'm counting high jump too because you can snapshot the boss's pbaoes with it) or blue mage with a really weird loadout (flying frenzy as filler, j-kick).

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Originally Posted by fulminating

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I noted you have ONE example, which isn't any of the things you actually mentioned in your initial post. Also, 11 sec << 30 sec. AND some people HAVE complained about Primal Rend. AND Primal Rend is on a MELEE RANGE JOB. SMN has exactly one melee range attack. WAR has exactly one non-melee attack. Moreover, the raid buff window is typically around 15 seconds, which is still more than 11 seconds.

And BLU isn't a real Job. DRG...we'll call it a draw?

Point still stands: It's a weird ability on a caster that is on the GCD when the only other Job you immediately could think of that shares that trait is a Tank, a melee range Job, and even it has MORE flexibility on when to use it than SMN does.

If it was an oGCD and not part of a 1-2 combo, we wouldn't even be discussing it. In general, I feel it's odd that in a game with magic, we only have one Caster that does not engage with melee range - BLM. Every other Job in the game that isn't BRD, MCH, or AST has melee or near-melee range abilities, which is honestly just weird. But SMN's is a forced part of its rotation while others have a good deal more flexibility.

AT BEST, it's a "weird" design decision.