SMN - Why it is not a very interesting job and not a good upgrade from ACN

[RazeLandale]

I guess if I were to play fantasy developer...fester removed with enkindle reworked to fill it's role as your main aetherflow attack. This makes the pet feel important without a full rework of the class(Which won't happen) and it covers a hole in smn gameplay, giving them a tool that lets them burst down adds that need burst down. Contagion is the 50 job skill. Garuda gets..some new move. Ifrits shield reworked to aoe blaze spikes and stun removed, perhaps replaced with a aoe attack or just the same attack with more potency. Bane target limit removed and/or tri-disaster made into a proper aoe attack. Freeze got a buff when it was horrible just for the sake of it(aoe not exactly being a blm weak point), so why is tri-disaster still such a disaster?

[Exstal]

All the fairy does for SCH is cast a slightly weaker cure automatically. It's the same damn thing as garuda casting wind blade automatically.

Well Eos' Whisper Dawn is useful, whereas Garuda's second skill is trash. Both Fey Illumination and Contaigon are good and the 3rd skill, Mdef up for SCH and I have no idea what it is for Garuda, are both bad.
Whereas Titan and Ifrit are both trash, with Selene's 3rd, 4th skill being useful.

SCH just relies more on pet to be up to par on WHM healing but it's the same for SMN, don't use pet in a raid setting and watch your DPS take a nose dive.

[Kirinichibon]

so why is tri-disaster still such a disaster?

It's balanced with itself to be fair...it hits unlimited targets in range and has a crazy long bind. If crowd control has more value in PVE other than sleep, it might be a decent skill. But it's lower damage than bliz2, because it's range. And it has a long cast time, so it's not abused. Also your dots tic on bound mobs still, so you could dot something and bind it to watch it die.

But when you mix it with other ACN/SMN skills and compare it to bliz2, it just seems silly in any situation. I would prefer tri-dis to be: 1-2s cast time / 10s recast / 75dmg to all targets in range / 10 second bind. That way it would still be less powerful than point blank bliz2 spam but still be something that we can squeeze into our aoe rotations.

[Kirinichibon]

Garuda's second skill is trash

Shockwave on command can be a very handy interrupt.

Ifrit is actually fine damage, it's just not worth losing contagion for useless radiant shield.

[Madoka]

Tri-D has a place in T7, but that's about it. I would not argue with a shorter cast/longer CD on it in return for a bit more damage. I'm not saying there isn't room to clean up SMN, but I am arguing with the people who seem to think XI's SMN would work here. Or that somehow dots + an egi doesn't = SMN just because this is the first time it's happened in an FF.

[Elladie]

I feel I have to post here if only to present a different perspective. My main is BLM (Ilevel 95, working on Animus books and downing Twin) but I've heard some talk that BLM is less effective in 2nd Coil because - maybe? - of movement intensive fights. I hated Titan HM and Titan EX on BLM ... Anyway I've already levelled ARN to 50 but mostly play as SCH; I enjoy healing as a change of pace and it gives me nice queue times in roulettes. As of last Thursday, I hadn't even done the SMN job quests. But I wondered about running SMN in Coil2 since it shares a lot of gear with my BLM. So I picked up the Omnitome (EX primals reward weapon) and did some reading up on rotations and so on. And OMG! I am having AN ABSOLUTE BLAST! Dungeon mobs and bosses melt, and I can whizz around the arena squealing with excitement, avoiding AOEs, and still DPS-ing my patootsie off! Friends in my static say they haven't heard me have so much fun in ages.

Why are you complaining?! Please stop! I love this job

[Kirinichibon]

patootsie

Agreed.

I really do think if dot and pet damage were better highlighted in scrolling combat text, some folks would feel a little better about the class. 1000 damage might feel like a bigger impact than 1000 damage.

[Deifact]

patootsie

patootsie!

[Elladie]

You guys have some objection to patootsies??

[Kirinichibon]

patootsies

Agreed.

Wait, what were we talking about?