Summoner needs a quick fix too

[Zantusken]

If you aren't owning things on SMN and are running out of MP midfight, you are doing it wrong >.>;

if you are playing SMN effectively with multi-doting(past bane), ruin 2 weaving, ect you WILL run out of MP very fast. This is only really noticeable in coil, but that's the only time it really matters as well. SMN will lose to melee in most fights, and BLM in any standstill fight. Melees will have TP issues eventually, but they have far more sustainability than SMN does, also while dealing more DPS(there are exceptions based on the fight, but in general). The only way to not run out of MP within a couple of minutes in any FCoB fight is to take a massive DPS hit with constant energy drains, or to ask for ballad. Asking for a ballad is fine, but honestly that MP is better spent on a paeon or foe assuming the healers don't need MP. On top of all of that, i130 caster gear is overloaded with spell speed, which will only make these problems worse.

[Raiker]

Is this specifically in regards to final coil?

[Sleigh]

Gotta love these L2P posts from people who haven't used SMN T10 - 13 and assume a SMN running low on MP is doing it wrong. News flash: staying decent on MP in the second half of these new fights means you're doing it wrong, or getting Ballad.

I'm on T13. I can't justify, no matter how much I'd like to, playing SMN on any turn so far over BLM, from an efficiency standpoint: if you have full upkeep you WILL run out of MP, or have to sacrifice DPS willingly to keep your MP afloat. T10 is 9 minutes long without a break, T11 is 10 minutes long with almost no breaks (very slight breaks, less than a GCD each break), T12 is 12 minutes long with only a very short break going into adds and about 20s of downtime in the form of two dodge phases, T13 is nearly 14 minutes long with only a couple breaks, about 30s of total downtime.

SMN lasts about 4 minutes playing normally, a bit longer if you're very conservative with R2 usage but you still go dry relatively quickly, and if you don't go dry you're throttling your DPS a bit. Add in multi-DoTs, which every turn has, and the go dry point comes up much quicker. Compare this to BLM who in this same time frame will never go dry and you'll see why most groups are running BLM right now. SMN MP issues weren't a problem before 2.4 because virtually every end-game fight had long enough breaks in them or were short enough that running out of MP truly was a L2P issue. The one exception was T8, where SMN was and is one of the weakest DPS to bring. Now, all the fights are even more of an MP drain than T8, and much like T8, Ballad is not needed past progression ... thus SMN is in a bad spot.

It's a shame too because SMN is pretty well designed for the new coil, and I'd like to think BLM's higher raw damage and AoE but less mobility and consistency with mechanics balances itself out pretty well to SMN's slightly lower damage but higher mobility, multi-DoT damage, and ability to get targeted by a mechanic with much less of a dip in DPS. However, since SMN can't actually do its full upkeep of damage without a huge dip in DPS while BLM has infinite resources, and any intent to sing solely for a SMN's MP could be more Foe's or Paeon's, SMN's undesirable in otherwise well-designed content.

[Ghastly]

Alternative to not using fester/bane is to use energy drain for many rotations which lowers your dps by a lot. It's like people say, summoner runs out of MP fast if it's doing high damage really fast.

[Brightshadow]

The only really nice change I think summoners should get is perhaps removing the limitation of 3 mobs for bane; however, that would probably make scholar OP.

[Alistaire]

BLM does superior single target damage to SMN and doesnt require BRD to gimp their dps, how is that fair?

It's fair because your statement isn't true. This whole thread is insane.

[Delily]

It's the class I see the least in dungeons.
Glad I left it, having a lot more fun as Warrior

Because we queue as scholars.

[BloodPact]

Are you guys using Elemental Siphon? /kappa.

[Havenchild]

-snip-

This ladies and gentleman is the true situation of summoners in FCOB right now. I consider myself a fairly good SMN and try my best to keep track of how much MP I use per fight. T10 at first seems to be one of the hardest MP drainers by default, even without Ruin II usage, multi dotting the adds with a BANE if you can, is enough to kill your mana efficiently. If you want to start using Shadow Flare at every corner (Optimal Rotations) good luck keeping the mana. This class is not playable efficiently in FCOB without a Ballad or lolenergydrains. Anyone who says otherwise, either doesn't play summoner at all, or doesn't play it well.

[Eardstapa]

I feel we are forgetting that i110 was never meant to clear final coil... Give it a little bit more time to see how they fair with i130 gear. If it is still an apparent issue, then we can all soundly agree SMN needs better MP management and costs. Effectively, I'd say SMN having MP issues in T8 is similar to MNK having TP issues... Both can push damage, and at i110 they will both run dry long before the boss is dead. Now I wouldn't know if MNK runs into TP issues in final coil since I have been working too much to get into third coil, let alone clear a few second coil turns, but I wonder if better gear will fix this issue.