We have finally come full circle, SMN's need help!

[Valoiz]

1) People complaining about all classes (etc)
NOW 5) People complaining about SMN
6) You can battle raise? Sure, at the cost of a huge chunk of mp,

Dure are u mad? lol
Its a vicius circle, mmo players always complain, always will be a top DPS, its IMPOSIBLE for all DPS to have the same output on every figth.... SMNs classes are never top DPS on ANY MMO i know... (playing SMn classes since L2)
U cant res in battle without running out of mana cuz u like to spam Ruin II? then u suck
My DPS + my pet its always on top.. even in PVP
SMN have more movility than BLM and more suvavility than all the melees together.....
SMN have eye for an Eye and Virus to reduce dmg taken and HAVE to KNOW and be skiller playing with his egi (cuz AI suck) have to know how gear up.
I also play as healer and have to say i preffer 100 times 1 noob SMN than a standard MNK dying cuz dont want to dodge and lose dps.. or never breaking a freaking seduce on Ramuh... etc etc

[Sleigh]

U cant res in battle without running out of mana cuz u like to spam Ruin II? then u suck

More like ... never using Ruin II, using non-GCDs raw or after Bio only, lowering our mediocre DPS and still running out of MP. Yes we SMNs sure do suck, doing what we're supposed to!

My DPS + my pet its always on top.. even in PVP

You might beat PUGs. You're not beating serious players with equal gear in 99% of the content in the game on SMN, if you do they suck and I wouldn't use it as an argument for balancing.

[Sparktacus]

I'm confused as to why people are complaining about MP management in long fights. Melee have required paeon in a lot of content in order to maintain their maximum dps. Just because SMN is the only caster (out of two casters, so really that means nothing) that has a limited pool doesn't mean they need to be changed. If melee need a bard, so should casters.

Because melee dps now have Ninja to goad them and no longer need paeon, bards should be using foe's. And if a bard needs to ballad for one smn it is a bigger dps loss. In old content the enrage times were smaller making sustaining dps much easier, the longer the fight smn has no way to get mp back at a manageable rate without harming their own dps.

[Ryans]

Because melee dps now have Ninja to goad them and no longer need paeon, bards should be using foe's. And if a bard needs to ballad for one smn it is a bigger dps loss. In old content the enrage times were smaller making sustaining dps much easier, the longer the fight smn has no way to get mp back at a manageable rate without harming their own dps.

Melee still need paeon with the tp increase to ninjas. It used to be viable as Ninja could last through even t8 with invigorate, but that isn't the case anymore.

[Sleigh]

Melee still need paeon with the tp increase to ninjas. It used to be viable as Ninja could last through even t8 with invigorate, but that isn't the case anymore.

It doesn't change the fact that playing Army's Paeon for 2 tanks and 3 other DoW is highly valuable and worth the 20% BRD damage decrease temporarily, while playing Ballad for one SMN who does less than everyone else, at the same damage loss for the BRD, is quite silly.

TP song is going to happen with or without SMN. SMN tied to the same resource pool (IE basically needs MP song to do well) is very bad balance wise, all things considered.

[Ryans]

It doesn't change the fact that playing Army's Paeon for 2 tanks and 3 other DoW is highly valuable and worth the 20% BRD damage decrease temporarily, while playing Ballad for one SMN who does less than everyone else, at the same damage loss for the BRD, is quite silly.

TP song is going to happen with or without SMN. SMN tied to the same resource pool (IE basically needs MP song to do well) is very bad balance wise, all things considered.

The problem is that the only other caster has a limitless mana pool. Ballad should be needed just as much as paeon depending on the composition of your party. But it isn't. The only reason to use ballad is if your healers are low on mp. All casters should last longer than melee before running dry, but only by a minute to two minutes. Either change Blm (perhaps a goad for mp if they don't want to change their unlimited mana) or add more casters that actually have to manage resources to make ballad useful.

Or just make real support classes. It has been a long time coming. We don't need the trinity anymore.

[Airget]

An interesting gimmick just came to mind in terms of how pets could be utilized. Right now they are melee, tank and range, however range is most accessible because they can interact with the summoenrs DoTs.

However what if the potency of a pet was based on the MP of the SMN.

Let's say Garuda was a summoned pet more potent the higher the SMN's MP pool was so from say 50-100% Garuda would be the best pet to use, when a SMN's pool dips under 50% Ifrit would be better to use but when MP becomes to low you could switch to Titan and "absorb the earth" to regain MP. This would at least offer some sort of interaction between swapping pets that could offer a dynamic concept to SMN while also offering a use for titan an otherwise lackluster pet in a party setting.

I'd also say maybe offer each pet an interaction ability with DoTs, Garuda increasing duration by a set amount, Ifrit increasing potency based on whether he's used below or above 50% mp left on SMN and Titan could just increase the spread to be limitless. They could all be under the same 1 min timer so you wouldn't be able to swap and use all 3, and Titan's accessibility would be in his ability to help take down a large group of adds easier.

--
Basically:
Garuda would be a pet you use at 50-100% MP (20% potency increase)
Ifrit would be a pet use from 0-50% MP (30% potency increase)
Titan would be used to help regen MP (Triples natural MP restoration)*maybe higher

Garuda's Contagion would remain with same effect
Ifrit's DoT buff would increase DoT dealt per tick with the potency increased based on whether ifrit was used above or below 50%
Titan's DoT buff would be Bane without the limitation of up to 3 targets.
*The three abilities would all share the same timer

With the DoTs the potency of them would basically be

Ifrit(under 50%)>Garuda>Ifrit(over 50%)>Titan

[warren-ragnarok]

How about increasing MP recovery added to Aetherdam III trait. Current Aetherflow recovers 20% MP, that trait could give it a 20% extra, making it 40% (technically the same as Envigorate restoring 400/1000 (40%) TP and 500 for DRGs)

i dont play smn much, but i do play sch and also realize smn needs to be fixed, but this is kinda a bad idea since it will affect sch too. the balance on sch vs whm is too bad in some regards on each side, and doing something like this would help give sch a much better edge (and i hate saying that since i do love playing sch more than whm)

[Lavieh]

i dont play smn much, but i do play sch and also realize smn needs to be fixed, but this is kinda a bad idea since it will affect sch too. the balance on sch vs whm is too bad in some regards on each side, and doing something like this would help give sch a much better edge (and i hate saying that since i do love playing sch more than whm)

Yea, SCH is in an excellent spot, It may be hard to buff SMN without Buffing SCH's.... But there has to be a creative way around that.

[Ghishlain]

Yea, SCH is in an excellent spot, It may be hard to buff SMN without Buffing SCH's.... But there has to be a creative way around that.

Changes like these are part of the reason why it's difficult to balance SMN properly because any changes to the abilities will affect both and SCHs really don't need any buffs.

Things that come to mind that may help the job directly:
-A PIE multiplier tied directly to the SMN soul crystal. This will give you higher MP for better Aetherflow / native MP regeneration. I imagine since "stat growth" is tied to the class / job, it would be just a matter of S-E tweaking the PIE value of this variable to be more suitable
-Adjust Tri-Disaster to be something in vein of Elemental Siphon of XI fame. Something that gives you MP back on command by having your pet out. Perhaps give it an HP drain effect that converts the HP into MP from your pet to add an element of "risk" to using the ability.

On a different tangent, here are some random thoughts in regards to the topic as a whole.

Adjusting Spellspeed to be beneficial to SMN
-Spellspeed is a dead stat for SMN, meaning itemization later down the line will eventually make all the SMNs go "...are you s---ing me?" with the over abundance of SpS in the current gear tier. This will happen on occasion as long as SpS remains a dead stat for SMN. Thus, the better recourse is to adjust how SpS may benefit SMN instead of having S-E look at every set of Caster gear and say "Well, we'll never be able to use SpS ever again because Summoner".

Adjusting for the Future Classes
-One of the complaints I've seen in the thread is the fact there's no point in BRD singing Ballad for the DPS, as Paeon would be much more beneficial. Playing a little's Devil's Advocate here, would that complaint change if there were more MP based classes that don't have infinite resources like a BLM? For example if they released Geomancer which is another ranged DPS using MP as their resource and then Red Mage as a melee DPS with en-spells that slowly burn their MP for melee damage. If your DPS was SMN GEO RDM BRD, this would make much more sense for Ballads. It's something with implications much further down the line, but perhaps worth a topic of discussion and consideration.

Disclaimer: I'm no Summoner, I just like theorycrafting / discussions about balancing~