Feedback: Summoner 8.0 Job Direction & Addressing Caster Raise Tax

This post summarizes a proposed long-term direction for Summoner (SMN) in 8.0, with the goal of preserving accessibility while restoring job identity, flexibility, and meaningful skill expression. A short section at the end also addresses Red Mage (RDM) raise tax, which is closely related.

Summoner – Core Design Goals

• Keep SMN approachable for casual players
• Glowing buttons guide the baseline rotation
• Restore a traditional FF summoner fantasy
• Smaller summons build toward a powerful apex summon
• Add optional skill expression
• Resource planning, timing, and risk–reward decisions
• Remain compatible with the 2-minute raid buff meta
• Reward alignment without hard-locking the job

Primal Gauge

• Max: 100
• Primal summon cost: 50
• Gauge is generated through standard GCDs
• Tuned so ~120 gauge is generated per minute

This allows SMN to:

• Bank up to two Primal summons
• Delay spending without overcapping
• Smooth downtime and movement naturally

Dreadwyrm Aether

• Gained only from Primal summons
• 1 Dreadwyrm Aether per Primal, Max: 3
• At 3 Dreadwyrm Aether, Bahamut becomes available
• Dreaedwyrm Aether cannot overcap

Rotation Flow (Baseline)

• Build Primal Gauge with filler GCDs
• Summon Primals (Ifrit / Titan / Garuda) Large instant damage
• Each Primal grants 1 Dreadwyrn Aether
• At 3 Dreadwyrm Aether, summon Bahamut

Bahamut & Raid Buff Interaction

• Bahamut is resource-based ability (OGCD), not strictly time-locked
• Bahamut phase uses instant-cast GCDs for mobility
• If Bahamut is summoned during Searing Light, it upgrades into Solar Bahamut

Free Gauge oGCD (Recovery & Flexibility Tool)

• Grants +50 Primal Gauge, 2 charges
• Cannot exceed gauge cap
• Cannot be used pre-pull

Purpose:

• Death recovery
• Downtime smoothing
• Burst alignment flexibility

Opener & Pre-Pull Consistency
Example Opener

• SMN starts combat with 100 Primal Gauge
• −3s: Pre-cast first Primal (lands on pull)
• GCD 1: Second Primal
• oGCD: Free gauge skill (+50)
• GCD 2: Third Primal
• GCD 3: Bahamut → Solar Bahamut inside buffs

Phoenix & Raise Utility
Phoenix is summoned using Primal Gauge like other Primals, but consumes Primal Gauge, grants no Dreadwyrm Aether, Delays Bahamut progression
Which results in:

• No damage loss in perfect runs
• Real, visible cost when used in progression
• Lore-accurate

Similar proposed change to RDM

Verraise consumes around 50 White Mana, which result in immediate mana imbalance, punishing when used, but not affecting damage output in clean run.

Thank you for taking the time to read and consider this feedback.

While I appreciate differences to Summoner gameplay from as it is currently, hopefully also by reducing the amount of instantcasts the job has because at this point it's an honorary Physical Ranged job and Samurai is an honorary Caster...

...I absolutely need to address the elephant in the room that is your suggestions to Raise Utility and why it is way worse than what we have now.

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Originally Posted by Aoyanagi

Phoenix & Raise Utility
Phoenix is summoned using Primal Gauge like other Primals, but consumes Primal Gauge, grants no Dreadwyrm Aether, Delays Bahamut progression
Which results in:

• No damage loss in perfect runs
• Real, visible cost when used in progression
• Lore-accurate

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While I find Caster Raise to be a powerful tool for progression, it is powerful because it doesn't massively overtaxes your damage output through direct gameplay and is instead currently taxed by total damage output - which to my knowledge and personal opinion on community sentiment, is already absurdly overtaxed given the DPS discrepency between Raise and non-Raise Caster jobs.

I am going to assume that using your Summons will actually be a major part of your damage output for the job. By making Phoenix not only something "lesser" than Bahamut (feels very sad) but actively hinder your progression to summoning Bahamut AND cost you the gauge for a damage-focused Summon, you actually dial up what is considered overtaxed utility from an 8 out of 10... to 11. At this point you might as well remove Raising on casters altogether because that is a utility not worth playing your job around for with the current raid design.

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Originally Posted by Aoyanagi

Similar proposed change to RDM

Verraise consumes around 50 White Mana, which result in immediate mana imbalance, punishing when used, but not affecting damage output in clean run.

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The same logic applies here - you are forced to spend what is the equivalent of 5x Veraero III and 4x Verstone and massively delay if not utterly cost you melee combos down the road for a Raise that already costs 2400 MP to begin with. You know what SMN & RDM raises have in common? They don't do damage to begin with, they cost a load of MP and they don't generate resources. And to use them efficiently, you have to burn a Swiftcast or a Dualcast for them.

That said, the "mana imbalance" can be circumvented by having White Mana keep a 22-28 Mana lead over Black Mana, where using Verraise will never actually imbalance you to either side and make further resource building hampered. You can also temporarily overaspect into White Mana ahead of time if you feel like you spotted a guaranteed death.

To Summarize:

Red Mage & Summoner are already overtaxed from a baseline damage output. Raising as a utility has been less intense since Swiftcast received a 40s CD trait in Dawntrail, making Healer raises more readily available between both of the healers. By making your Raises cost an unreasonably excessive amount of your damage output without even addressing where they should be placed on the DPS chart next to Black Mage and Pictomancer to account for said situational tax is just ridiculous.

Also, you know what else doesn't cost you the damage in a perfect run? Playing Black Mage or Pictomancer.

i think u missed my point. the reason i wanna redesign caster raise is to make caster meta balanced. make raise punishing for rotation but balance all casters equally. so raises only taxes when used. current raise taxed both smn and rdm even when raise isnt used at all in perfect run.

also yea i am smn main since hw, now am pct main cos smn just suffered too much. what's the point of having raise at all when smn dmg itself so low to the point the whole party cant afford any death on wk1. current caster meta is weird cos they tax rdm smn for no reason. raise wasnt even problem back in sb shb but if smn rdm base dmg suffered just simply cos they got raise even when unused, then might as well remove raise from caster so caster meta can be balanced

edit: actually my bad i think i didnt state the caster meta rebalance cos character limit ' - ' ) but ya balance all casters equally, make raise taxing only when used

It’s because the devs balance jobs on ease of use (as perceived and determined by them lol); not solely because of Raise. Summoner is by far the most easy job in the game, objectively. Naturally, that puts it dead last in dps output (because more job difficulty = more dps). Changing Raise won’t fix that until they decide to move away from having ‘easy jobs that do bad dps’ and ‘hard jobs that do good dps’ (see also: physical ranged, Red Mage)

yes smn is the easiest now which is why i proposed this changes. some of these actually based from old hw sb era smn (the dreadwyrm aether)

i do acknowledge some people likes current design as the easy job that "just works" no matter how u press the buttons, this was considered too in my redesign

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Originally Posted by Aoyanagi

i think u missed my point. the reason i wanna redesign caster raise is to make caster meta balanced. make raise punishing for rotation but balance all casters equally. so raises only taxes when used. current raise taxed both smn and rdm even when raise isnt used at all in perfect run.

also yea i am smn main since hw, now am pct main cos smn just suffered too much. what's the point of having raise at all when smn dmg itself so low to the point the whole party cant afford any death on wk1. current caster meta is weird cos they tax rdm smn for no reason. raise wasnt even problem back in sb shb but if smn rdm base dmg suffered just simply cos they got raise even when unused, then might as well remove raise from caster so caster meta can be balanced

edit: actually my bad i think i didnt state the caster meta rebalance cos character limit ' - ' ) but ya balance all casters equally, make raise taxing only when used

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The way you make it more balanced is by not overtaxing Raise in the first place. Your version of Raise will just result in that raise being used when neither healer is able to, at a hit to damage that puts every other non-damage GCD to shame. It also disregards potential damage losses that could cause wipes with mid-fight dps checks (ultimate phases, add phases, bursting before boss disengages, etc) - it would just not be worth running or adjusting around it.

The solution is to not have Red Mage & Summoner be taxed this hard in the first place - these jobs shouldn't need to barter with the devs to be given a sliver of more damage and have their Raise be utterly wrecked as a result. Summoner, prior to Endwalker, existed as a caster that was competitive with Black Mage in damage output and still had a Raise. Both were still played.

Yes, Raise is a nice prog tool, but it is not worth being taxed this hard for it, its not that good. Having the situational awareness to raise for your healers as well as sacrificing a damaging GCD (along with not generating gauge with the loss of said GCD) should be tax enough as is.

yes i also questioned why raise tax is a thing now, when it was never issue pre ew. i said i was smn main since hw so ya i know how strong smn was without u telling me lmao

but if the dev's new direction is to tax caster raise, then ya me prefer raise to be completely removed from casters, or make it role action so every caster have it, or that above, just tax it only when used, not on clean run

SMN has low dps because it's low effort
RDM has low dps because of rez tax

we are not the same

SMN having having no cast times on most of its spells is a greater contributor to its low damage. It's also why Phys Ranged are in a terrible spot.

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Originally Posted by Aoyanagi

yes i also questioned why raise tax is a thing now, when it was never issue pre ew. i said i was smn main since hw so ya i know how strong smn was without u telling me lmao

but if the dev's new direction is to tax caster raise, then ya me prefer raise to be completely removed from casters, or make it role action so every caster have it, or that above, just tax it only when used, not on clean run

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That's the trick with the devs. If they remove raise they'll find a new excuse to keep the tax like "job is low effort". See the justification for rphys jobs after they kept hammering us that rphys had lower damage output because of the party support, and now that people ain't buying it anymore, it's because apparently full uptime is low effort even though no mobility tools (so no sloppy mechanical execution allowed unlike other jobs). Next expansion VPR may also get the treatment because it's low effort, although jury's still out since it's a melee job and melee jobs get more attention.

I would honestly not pay too much attention to arbitrary justifications that are given at any time, they're short sighted and ever changing depending on the agenda behind, and mean very little in fine.

which is why i wanna propose redesign for both smn and rdm. the smn job fantasy i had was based on fft smn, with long cast, big summon, big dmg, big aoe. but guess what i got when i joined the game back in hw? a dot mage with chikin nugget. current smn fits better into the job fantasy but now i miss how we used to work to build up to bahamut, not just summon it every 60s.

so ya my proposal was make smn caster again, with every primal or demi summon cast as long as pct motif. make the job build up from small to big again, not bahamut then small primals. make every summons feel impactful cos u build it.

tldr; i want the job to be low skill floor so that casuals can just press glowy buttons and the job "just works", but also high skill ceiling for raiders to optimize by resource management and decision making

The flavor of the current raises , especially red mage's are a massive attraction for a lot of players. A lot of people appreciate red mage in prog and in this expansion we finally had a caster strong enough to bring instead of a second melee. This way red mage could be used without getting bullied out during prog. People were mad about how good picto is with downtime so we lost that.

I think for the role to be balanced melee needs to not outclass the selfish casters.

I honestly don’t care what final fantasy 12.56 the ultimate round the twist birth by sleep remake says SMN should be I care what 14’s lore says SMN should be

Old SMN summoned things and it justified in lore why it wasn’t a cheap knockoff rydia cosplay from spirit halloween, so therefore to me that’s instantly better than whatever modern SMN is

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Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

The flavor of the current raises , especially red mage's are a massive attraction for a lot of players. A lot of people appreciate red mage in prog and in this expansion we finally had a caster strong enough to bring instead of a second melee. This way red mage could be used without getting bullied out during prog. People were mad about how good picto is with downtime so we lost that.

I think for the role to be balanced melee needs to not outclass the selfish casters.

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the easiest balance would be to remove raise tax and make all casters balanced again since raise tax wasnt issue pre ew. but since now the devs think raise tax is a thing then i would prefer the previously proposed changes. i prefer jobs to not get locked away cos caster dmg varies too much between pct blm and smn rdm.

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Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

The flavor of the current raises , especially red mage's are a massive attraction for a lot of players. A lot of people appreciate red mage in prog and in this expansion we finally had a caster strong enough to bring instead of a second melee. This way red mage could be used without getting bullied out during prog. People were mad about how good picto is with downtime so we lost that.

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Plus in any even moderately well-designed RPG class system, at least 1 class per non-support role will be "support-ish". So having Rezz Mage be a spam-rezzer makes a lot of sense, it also has a (surprisingly strong!) heal, and two damage reductions.

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Originally Posted by Aoyanagi

the easiest balance would be to remove raise tax and make all casters balanced again since raise tax wasnt issue pre ew. but since now the devs think raise tax is a thing then i would prefer the previously proposed changes. i prefer jobs to not get locked away cos caster dmg varies too much between pct blm and smn rdm.

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So since it doesn't (vary too much) and they're not (getting locked away), then clearly nothing has to change, yes? As per your comment?

I don't think they're exactly locked away but in statics you'll often find people having to change for PCT BLM, as seen in FRU as the most obvious culprit. So we're obviously not to the point of FRU PCT, but it's lingering, never far.

There's already 4 SMN clears of M12 so it shouldnt be as bad, if 4 out of 100 000 can do it you can do too! Also 1 MCH clear but the game is of course perfectly balanced

We are getting Ruin V from Ruin IV and Lunar Phoenix and nothing else. And you will like it as THIS IS WHAT YALL WANTED IN EW!

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Originally Posted by Jirah

We are getting Ruin V from Ruin IV and Lunar Phoenix and nothing else. And you will like it as THIS IS WHAT YALL WANTED IN EW!

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No in a sudden twist, it'll be Lunar Ruin and Phoenix II!

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Originally Posted by Carighan

No in a sudden twist, it'll be Lunar Ruin and Phoenix II!

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Mecha-phoenix, for reasons.

Well they seemed to have picked the Lunar one from last expansion's Lunar primals, so in 8.0 if they do the same process we'll probably summon cyber bahamut

Im convinced Summoners raise tax shouldn't really exist. The raise should stay the same and the job should just be a little more challenging to play.

In stormblood summoner had its res and was the highest dps job in the game because it was actually challenging.

Some jobs like samurai viper and current black mage are so easy but super strong because they're selfish. If summoner wants to deserve a spot there then the extreme simplicity needs to be adressed. I think the regular res should not change because thats not adding challenge thats adding jank and creating even more separation from arcanist. Summoners need 3 more gems for shiva ramuh and leviathan so we have primary elements all covered and more diverse rotations for those gems than free no cast gemshin spam outside ifrits TWO casts.

As far as restoring caster balance I don't even think all 4 casters should share a role. Same issue with machinist being a phys ranged. the other two are weak supports and they keep machinist weak to not outshine them despite it BEING A PURE SELFISH DPS. If summoner got to keep its res and easy "rotation" and be competitive in damage then jobs like machinist will be in a far more unforgivable state of weakness. Seriously the dps subroles are so terribly designed right now that im not even sure what they can do at this point

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Originally Posted by Valence

Well they seemed to have picked the Lunar one from last expansion's Lunar primals, so in 8.0 if they do the same process we'll probably summon cyber bahamut

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PLEASE STOP SQUARE ENIX NO MORE UGLY BAHAMUT REDESIGNS! Give me literally anything else besides the digusting look solar bahamut or a boring lunar phoenix.

Haha it'd be even more lame if they just keep stapling more and more reskins of just Bahamut on top, not even Phoenix. Techno Bahamut next! >.>

I think personally smn should be reworked so you build to demis not from them. Instants should become casted GCD'd with the exception of Garuda and Maybe Phoenix.

Beyond that, add something that needs managing / choice. An easy route would be to add three more Arcanum summons, but retain the ability to only use three. Split them into high damage / low movement and High Movement / Utility and provide the choice of when you use them.
Im not good enough to figure out what this would look like on an ability to ability level.

I also feel like demis and arcanums shouldnt remove carbuncle. There is zero reason for it, but make carbuncle function like DRK's living shadow. It runs through a steady rotation, (and give it glamours beyond carbuncles for flavour) Give summoner ability OGCD's that empower or draw out speific things from that constand pet. Hell even make it so cabuncle acts like old Bahamut demi where it will execute an attack based on when you do.

final change id make is to allow banking of arcanum on a minute cooldown for Garuda, ifrit, Phoenix and Temu Banamut. So you can choose when to use it rather than force it within the window it currently is.

Overall it wouldnt likely change much, but breaking the punishing conveyer is needed and would mke the job a bit more difficult.

SMN could be a bit like blm in that conceptually its rotation isnt hard, but executionally is it.

Currently both concept and execution are easy unless you have high ping.

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Originally Posted by Anvaire

I think personally smn should be reworked so you build to demis not from them. Instants should become casted GCD'd with the exception of Garuda and Maybe Phoenix.

Beyond that, add something that needs managing / choice. An easy route would be to add three more Arcanum summons, but retain the ability to only use three. Split them into high damage / low movement and High Movement / Utility and provide the choice of when you use them.
Im not good enough to figure out what this would look like on an ability to ability level.

I also feel like demis and arcanums shouldnt remove carbuncle. There is zero reason for it, but make carbuncle function like DRK's living shadow. It runs through a steady rotation, (and give it glamours beyond carbuncles for flavour) Give summoner ability OGCD's that empower or draw out speific things from that constand pet. Hell even make it so cabuncle acts like old Bahamut demi where it will execute an attack based on when you do.

final change id make is to allow banking of arcanum on a minute cooldown for Garuda, ifrit, Phoenix and Temu Banamut. So you can choose when to use it rather than force it within the window it currently is.

Overall it wouldnt likely change much, but breaking the punishing conveyer is needed and would mke the job a bit more difficult.

SMN could be a bit like blm in that conceptually its rotation isnt hard, but executionally is it.

Currently both concept and execution are easy unless you have high ping.

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Some really cool ideas here and I agree with more arcanum and making the one you chose more nuanced.

However im opposed to reverting summoner to a ramper like in stormblood. While summoner should be harder I dont think it should have a 2 minute opener just to build up 1 demi. The current ability to have a demi during the opener is something many of us begged for.

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Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

Some really cool ideas here and I agree with more arcanum and making the one you chose more nuanced.

However im opposed to reverting summoner to a ramper like in stormblood. While summoner should be harder I dont think it should have a 2 minute opener just to build up 1 demi. The current ability to have a demi during the opener is something many of us begged for.

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Thats fair.

I wouldn't want it that either, i just would like it to build to it rather than have it from the get go.
There are many ways of doing that without it needing to be a 2 minute opener though.

I guess i view it as demis are the apex of the SMN Ability.
But the other method could be a "Grand Summon" above demi. But then you're just adding bloat.
There are loads of ways they can go without entirely throwing out the endwalker rework.
I've enjoyed every differnt SMN design so im pretty open about what i want to see. Though being real id rather not see dots be the main focus of the Job again. That ship was tried multiple times and failed.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I honestly don’t care what final fantasy 12.56 the ultimate round the twist birth by sleep remake says SMN should be I care what 14’s lore says SMN should be

Old SMN summoned things and it justified in lore why it wasn’t a cheap knockoff rydia cosplay from spirit halloween, so therefore to me that’s instantly better than whatever modern SMN is

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Oh so much this. There's also the fact that there's precedence for persistent summons in around half of the Final Fantasys that have had summons, why would they matter less? Not that it matters, we had original summoner FROM THE BEGINNING and removing an entire job and two full unique play styles that far into a games life span was absolutely asinine. Not to mention the sheer window lickery of introducing a replacement in LIMITED CAPACITY five years later. Yoshida standing on stage awkwardly expecting people to get excited about another limited job was peak out of touch.

Also note, I activated my free time just to respond to this post. Haven't played the game on a long time. Even had to reinstall it just to log in and ultimately the removal of summoner was one of the major reasons.

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Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

As far as restoring caster balance I don't even think all 4 casters should share a role. Same issue with machinist being a phys ranged. the other two are weak supports and they keep machinist weak to not outshine them despite it BEING A PURE SELFISH DPS. If summoner got to keep its res and easy "rotation" and be competitive in damage then jobs like machinist will be in a far more unforgivable state of weakness. Seriously the dps subroles are so terribly designed right now that im not even sure what they can do at this point

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It could be split into 2 "selfish" DPS + 2 "support DPS" maybe.

Many melee jobs would need some rebalancing, but I could see that work out. End up with the majority selfish DPS until some class reworks though. Right now we'd only have Summoner (a bit), Red Mage, Dancer and Bard for the latter spots. So either 3+1, or turn in particular 2-3 melee DPS into more "supporty" loadouts, some with a rezz, others will multiple buffs and/or defensive tools for others.

If yall dont like raise taxes then throw your coerthan tea leaves out into Scholars harbor. Revolt against king Yoshida and establish eorzean independence !
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sp...20210728201655

Maybe a thing they could do for SMN is that when you summon Phoenix, it removes that cast time, and cool down on Phoenix Down so you can spam rezzes so long as you have a stash of Phoenix Downs in your inventory. And then make Summon Phenix its own cool down.

Either

(A) Add raise to all casters (caster role)

or

(B) Remove raise from all casters

then balance from there. EASY

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Originally Posted by Ayden

Either

(A) Add raise to all casters (caster role)

or

(B) Remove raise from all casters

then balance from there. EASY

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Yes please homogenize more, really the thing we don't have enough of yet... /sigh

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Originally Posted by Anvaire

I think personally smn should be reworked so you build to demis not from them. Instants should become casted GCD'd with the exception of Garuda and Maybe Phoenix.

Beyond that, add something that needs managing / choice. An easy route would be to add three more Arcanum summons, but retain the ability to only use three. Split them into high damage / low movement and High Movement / Utility and provide the choice of when you use them.
Im not good enough to figure out what this would look like on an ability to ability level.

I also feel like demis and arcanums shouldnt remove carbuncle. There is zero reason for it, but make carbuncle function like DRK's living shadow. It runs through a steady rotation, (and give it glamours beyond carbuncles for flavour) Give summoner ability OGCD's that empower or draw out speific things from that constand pet. Hell even make it so cabuncle acts like old Bahamut demi where it will execute an attack based on when you do.

final change id make is to allow banking of arcanum on a minute cooldown for Garuda, ifrit, Phoenix and Temu Banamut. So you can choose when to use it rather than force it within the window it currently is.

Overall it wouldnt likely change much, but breaking the punishing conveyer is needed and would mke the job a bit more difficult.

SMN could be a bit like blm in that conceptually its rotation isnt hard, but executionally is it.

Currently both concept and execution are easy unless you have high ping.

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thank you :3 finally someone who comment on actualy redesign idea rather than the raise tax me added at the very end. would also appreciate if u read the redesign idea.

agree about the pet not replaced by demis, also bring back pet actions. as somethin that empower pets, maybe remember enkindle, rouse, spur?

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Originally Posted by Reginald_Cain

Some really cool ideas here and I agree with more arcanum and making the one you chose more nuanced.

However im opposed to reverting summoner to a ramper like in stormblood. While summoner should be harder I dont think it should have a 2 minute opener just to build up 1 demi. The current ability to have a demi during the opener is something many of us begged for.

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1st, i didnt mind 2mins opener, it wasnt that hard. 2nd, pls read about my redesign 1st. u can ignore the raise tax part if u not agree with it. yes raise tax shouldnt be a thing in a 1st place if u read my other comments.

god forbid people read before comment

So to slightly re-iterate on something I wrote before because I really like the idea of building to demis, I'd envision Summoner like this:

You start with a random "set" of minors drawn. See below.

• You use those three minor summons.
• Only one minor generally has all-instant-casts or something comparable.
• After you used all three, you can summon a demi. Also randomly picked, as they all do equivalent damage (see below).
• With one exception: Demi-Phoenix. This one is always available but on a 120s. It essentially "aborts" the current cycle, instantly goes to a Demi, and this Demi is support centric. Damage down a lot, in turn it ground-targetted 15y AoE rezzes (with a short delay while the phoenix summons/forms, it's instant for us though), then has a very strong regen effect around itself and your filler becomes instant and pulses healing around the phoenix + the current heal/trigger buff is made a lot stronger and automatically applied on us the moment we summon the Phoenix to ensure we survive. This replaces the current rezz.

The "sets" mentioned above would be a set of 3 minor summons that each have 1 minor of the 3 categories:

• Ruby = high DPS, but also slow casts or even channels.
• Topaz = high mobility, medium DPS. This is the one that is all-instants.
• Emerald = medium mobility, low DPS, support-ish. Might be AoE runspeed, might be AoE regen, might be a passive self-only mobility while the summon is out, might be a teleport, whatever.

The demis are all equivalent in damage, but differ in their specific spell pattern only. This is purely for mechanical variety and to be able to add more summons/animations to the job, not balance.

I get the idea behind ‘building to Demi’s’ as opposed to starting with them but isn’t the job designed this way by necessity?

The way openers/120-rotations work means every job by necessity has to have its ‘big potency attack’ available at the start of a fight. Look at White Mages being changed to start with Afflatus Misery, all the ‘instantly charges gauge’ abilities, etc. Considering that, I wouldn’t be surprised if current outliers will change eventually to match. Bards starting with 100 song gauge, Black Mage starting battle with 3 Umbral hearts or 6 fire stacks, etc etc. Though I suppose technically they already have access to their ‘big potency attacks’ with Radiant Finale and Flare Star being fairly fast to reach with Ley Lines.

And personally, I don’t want them to replace Resurrection with a cooldown. Not only because it wouldn’t actually affect the ‘overall dps output they allot to Summoner’, but it would largely defeat the purpose of the skill in the first place if it was a cooldown.

There’s not much benefit in ‘covering mistakes that happen within an extremely short window during a specific summon’. The unreliability of Everlasting Flight and Lux Solaris are examples of this. Since you can’t control when you actually want to use it because it’s only available in a very narrow window, the whole thing ends up being wasted overhealing that nobody actually pays attention to. Cool-down raise would just fall into the same pitfalls; ‘I can’t use it when I need to so what does it even matter if it have it’.

You might get one or two moments where the stars align and someone dies during the ‘raise’ window, but I personally I think it’d be better to just continue with ‘you can Raise when you need it [rather than when cool-down dictates] but accessibility is balanced out by long cast time and prohibitively high MP costs’.

Not strictly true. As fights tend to have a rather reliable length of either roughly 10 minutes or 25-ish minutes, we know the number of burst windows that happen, so having designed-one-less and having the other ones be marginally too strong is easy.

If the devs are willing to fudge with numbers (compare how WoW very early on started fudging PPM mechanics as that just works better to not frustrate players) then the game could even "taper off" such a bonus. As in, you don't have a 0s burst, your 120s burst is a fair amount stronger, your 240s a bit less so, and so on, on a curve, until after like 10 minutes there's no difference at all any more as you've made up for the total lost damage of the missing 0s burst by now.

But yeah it'd be more complex than just having a 0s burst. But then the whole burst thing is a separate issue their ought to solve, not use as a leash to constrain all further class design with.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

Not strictly true. As fights tend to have a rather reliable length of either roughly 10 minutes or 25-ish minutes, we know the number of burst windows that happen, so having designed-one-less and having the other ones be marginally too strong is easy.

If the devs are willing to fudge with numbers (compare how WoW very early on started fudging PPM mechanics as that just works better to not frustrate players) then the game could even "taper off" such a bonus. As in, you don't have a 0s burst, your 120s burst is a fair amount stronger, your 240s a bit less so, and so on, on a curve, until after like 10 minutes there's no difference at all any more as you've made up for the total lost damage of the missing 0s burst by now.

But yeah it'd be more complex than just having a 0s burst. But then the whole burst thing is a separate issue their ought to solve, not use as a leash to constrain all further class design with.

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Wouldn’t that cause a ton of variation in damage outputs overall though because of buff stacking? It would be massively impacted by things like ‘this job has no 0s burst when half buffs are up but it gets a big attack at 100 where all the buffs are up’; if a job diverged and had it’s main burst at the 0s mark, wouldn’t it just end up weaker overall than every job that had their main burst at like 120s because it’s when every buff is up? Or vice-versa. It would inevitably just collapse back into ‘stick everything good in the one window where it’s most optimal and call it a day’ lol. I think, based on current design anyway.

I mean, I agree that 120-meta shouldn’t be a constraint to job design, but at the same time there is the reality that devs simply don’t sadly. Easier to balance if they just stick all the big stuff in the exact same window for everyone, lol. Whether that’ll remain in 8.0 is yet to be seen though (but I won’t hold my breath lest I suffocate lol)

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Originally Posted by Connor

I get the idea behind ‘building to Demi’s’ as opposed to starting with them but isn’t the job designed this way by necessity?

The way openers/120-rotations work means every job by necessity has to have its ‘big potency attack’ available at the start of a fight. Look at White Mages being changed to start with Afflatus Misery, all the ‘instantly charges gauge’ abilities, etc. Considering that, I wouldn’t be surprised if current outliers will change eventually to match. Bards starting with 100 song gauge, Black Mage starting battle with 3 Umbral hearts or 6 fire stacks, etc etc. Though I suppose technically they already have access to their ‘big potency attacks’ with Radiant Finale and Flare Star being fairly fast to reach with Ley Lines.

And personally, I don’t want them to replace Resurrection with a cooldown. Not only because it wouldn’t actually affect the ‘overall dps output they allot to Summoner’, but it would largely defeat the purpose of the skill in the first place if it was a cooldown.

There’s not much benefit in ‘covering mistakes that happen within an extremely short window during a specific summon’. The unreliability of Everlasting Flight and Lux Solaris are examples of this. Since you can’t control when you actually want to use it because it’s only available in a very narrow window, the whole thing ends up being wasted overhealing that nobody actually pays attention to. Cool-down raise would just fall into the same pitfalls; ‘I can’t use it when I need to so what does it even matter if it have it’.

You might get one or two moments where the stars align and someone dies during the ‘raise’ window, but I personally I think it’d be better to just continue with ‘you can Raise when you need it [rather than when cool-down dictates] but accessibility is balanced out by long cast time and prohibitively high MP costs’.

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if u read my original post on the rework i solved the burst opener issue. it's basically same way as samurai tbh with getting free gauge to speed up burst, then by 7s u enter big summon. taht free gauge ogcd will be the main burst aligner and recovery when u ded

altho at this point just revert 2mins meta cos the varied buff window and burst was way more fun