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

[Sleigh]

EDIT: One thing I will point out is that I see a lot of discussion about SMN's having mana issues now with this Final Coil. I'll have to pay more attention but in the past our SMN has NEVER even come close to running out of mana and he's also not holding off on using Ruin 2 or Shadow Flare. I've watched some gameplay videos he's put up and it does look like at times maybe he's not going all out blasting things as hard as possible but at the same time he's always hovering anywhere from 360-400 DPS depending on the turn. How much more DPS does he really need to be doing? It does suck to not be able to just constantly nuke all the time like some jobs but I think part of that is unless you're trying to progress and squeeze that lemon as hard as you can, there's no real need to blast away until your mana starved once you have content on farm. That's usually when my group eases up and starts just worrying about opening chests and hoping for the loot we will never see.

360-400 is really bad for every turn, no offense to your SMN.

This topic was never about if SMN can complete content, meet enrage timers, kill adds in time, etc. It sure can, especially once your group gets the content in question on farm. The issue is it's just a worse DPS than the others, and in the MMO community it's a legitimate issue when the job you gear up (based on weekly lockouts, no less) and specialize in is not wanted and shunned by people in the know.

[loreleidiangelo]

360-400 is really bad for every turn, no offense to your SMN.

This topic was never about if SMN can complete content, meet enrage timers, kill adds in time, etc. It sure can, especially once your group gets the content in question on farm. The issue is it's just a worse DPS than the others, and in the MMO community it's a legitimate issue when the job you gear up (based on weekly lockouts, no less) and specialize in is not wanted and shunned by people in the know.

Do you mean that those numbers are bad in comparison to other DPS jobs, or bad for a SMN specifically? If it's the latter, knowing gear/ilevel might change that.

[ShinryuReishiki]

From everything I've heard any and all parses on SMN are inaccurate. How inaccurate I don't know but from what I've heard the parsing of dots is an estimate and there are certain things it just doesn't register at all

They certainly aren't 100% accurate due to the way DoT damage is registered in game, but as of recent updates, it's generally within +/-1% of the actual damage.

Do you mean that those numbers are bad in comparison to other DPS jobs, or bad for a SMN specifically? If it's the latter, knowing gear/ilevel might change that.

Both, I'd imagine. 450-480 is where I'm at on SMN, depending on the Turn. If well-played and in equivalent gear, MNK, DRG, NIN, and BLM would all be close to/exceeding 500. BRD is the only DPS that would be under SMN, but if they have a DRG and Ballad is not needed, BRD would edge out SMN as well.

[Judge_Xero]

Looking at new Monk vids i125+ with single target numbers in the low 600's (very nice) it shows that the rate at which SMN damage increases is low.

I would attribute it to the stat weights more than gear and/or MP conservation especially against Melee classes.

Given SMN's low Magic Damage weight 6.57 (20-40% lower than other classes) and the rate that secondary stats increase 7-10% per 10 iLvls there is a stat scaling balance issue.

At low iLvl's where the secondary stats started relatively high compared to Weapon/Main stats, SMN did competitively well. But due to the rate that the main stats increase VS secondary stats, and how SMN skill potency was balanced against other classes on release, each update in gear will see a reduced increase in SMN damage.

Comparison to BLM

@ ~3 MD per 10 iLVL's BLM will accelerate past SMN at a Rate of 4 INT per MD. This doesn't include the low Secondary stat gain on SMN, especially Spell Speed.

i135 Weapon
BLM 656 Main Hand value - INT
SMN 539 Main Hand value - INT
Difference 117 INT

i70 Weapon
BLM 504 Main Hand Value - INT
SMN 413 Main Hand Value - INT
Difference 91 INT

The newest set of gear makes this very noticeable due to the amount of Spell Speed on the mage gear and how it scales with Summoner Damage. I haven't done the math but given BLM VS SMN BiS + the difference on scaling with WD/secondary stats we are probably looking at a difference of 40-60 INT. ~10% + on gear alone.

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I can see why they would take this approach since currently the pet scales off WD and INT at a higher rate than SMN (almost double, but it doesn't scale off Secondary Stats as a trade off) but the lesser increase on secondary stats causes SMN to fall behind. This appears to be an attempt to balance the Ratio of SMN to Pet damage on top of balancing SMN to all other classes.

My only guess to balance this would be to increase the damage scaling of pets from MD/INT (eventually pets will become a high % of overall SMN Damage though)

OR

Boost the weight of secondary stats for summoner - not ideal due to the non-static nature of gear secondary stats

OR

Most ideal IMO - Increase the Weight of MD for SMN and have the pet scale the same as SMN for all stats, including Spell Speed. In order to balance Magic Pets VS Melee pets, have DET scale the same way as it does for Melee and AA Damage.

I.E. - Garuda 2.4 GCD VS Ifrit 2.4 GCD for Flame Crush + DET Bonus for AA Damage, since AA doesn't scale off Spell Speed/Skill Speed
(to prevent SS from being too ideal for the use of Garuda over Ifrit)

This would just make pet damage an extension of the SMN (balanced as Raw Potency) instead of having to balance the pet on top of how the SMN performs. I.E. (A + B = C instead of A + B^2-(D+F))

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Because of this, I don't think SMN damage is being effected by a single issue.
It appears to be a combination of
- Gear/Stat Weights
- MP Management in long fights

I'm not convinced that MP management is the main issue that is reducing SMN potential over other classes, but rather a by-product of players trying to push every ounce of damage out of it to remain competitive with other classes. (Fester VS Energy Drain is such a miniscule portion of overall damage)

Patching SMN with potency increases will not address the gear scaling issues compared to other classes.
Increasing MP recovery/reducing spell cost will not address the damage difference to other classes approaching ilvl 131

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Does this mean that SMN is not good in current endgame content? No. But it does take a highly skilled SMN to push high enough numbers to compete with currently average players of other DPS classes (not including Bard).

Dummy Comparison iLVL 131

Estimated (Edited to bring DPS values to a less simulated amount)

SMN Single Target Damage @ i131 - 525 DPS (390 SMN + 135 PET) - Garuda
Melee 625
BRD 540
BLM 585
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Final Thoughts

Increase Summoner MD weight to around 7.5 - reduce how much the pet is effected by MD and INT and allow them to be effected by secondary stats.

[Sleigh]

Dummy Comparison iLVL 131

Estimated SMN Single Target Damage @ i131 - 560 DPS (410 SMN + 150 PET) - Garuda

Melee 640 +/- 15 DPS
BRD 560
BLM 620

I have a "friend" who parses and has i135 BLM and SMN weapons and no, SMN can't get to 560 (assuming a run without every Fester critting and going until 4 minutes) on a dummy without a whole lot of Foe's. BLM also can't even get close to 620 unless you have Foe's + Selene or an amazingly lucky run.

[Judge_Xero]

I have a "friend" who parses and has i135 BLM and SMN weapons and no, SMN can't get to 560 (assuming a run without every Fester critting and going until 4 minutes) on a dummy without a whole lot of Foe's. BLM also can't even get close to 620 unless you have Foe's + Selene or an amazingly lucky run.

If you don't mind me asking, how much DPS can your "Friend" do with BLM and SMN. Since I'm not i131 yet I was only able to simulate the damage based on what kind of damage I do currently on a Dummy (estimated).

The main point was to represent the growing gap between BLM and SMN (and Melee to a degree) in Single Target Damage. If you could give real world Dummy numbers that would make the comparison even better.

[Sleigh]

If you don't mind me asking, how much DPS can your "Friend" do with BLM and SMN. Since I'm not i131 yet I was only able to simulate the damage based on what kind of damage I do currently on a Dummy (estimated).

The main point was to represent the growing gap between BLM and SMN (and Melee to a degree) in Single Target Damage. If you could give real world Dummy numbers that would make the comparison even better.

My friend on average does about 500-510 around 4 minutes with SMN + Garuda (and is completely dry), and anywhere from 530-570 in the same time frame with BLM. This isn't max iLVL but it's relatively close.

The biggest hit against SMN vs BLM in a dummy (and to a tiny bit lesser extent real fight) scenario is how good Selene is for BLM. Selene is huge ... easily lets my friend do 20-30 more DPS over 4 minutes. SMN gets virtually nothing because those extra Ruins are bad for MP, which carries over to real fights in a negative way (well, not negative, but not good either). Foe's probably benefits SMN more on the opener than BLM, but it's much easier to utilize a second Foe's with BLM over SMN.

[loreleidiangelo]

Both, I'd imagine. 450-480 is where I'm at on SMN, depending on the Turn. If well-played and in equivalent gear, MNK, DRG, NIN, and BLM would all be close to/exceeding 500. BRD is the only DPS that would be under SMN, but if they have a DRG and Ballad is not needed, BRD would edge out SMN as well.

400 is the highest I've hit, at i113 without a BRD to play Foe's. I have no idea where I'm failing but I see these numbers in the high 400's sometimes and wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

Either way, I'm always the lowest DPS in my raid and thats discouraging, especially considering that I feel like I play more "strategically" on SMN than any other DPS job due to the various tools and resources we have to manage.

[Clarkamite]

360-400 is really bad for every turn, no offense to your SMN.

To be fair the numbers I threw out there were from months ago when he was at most i104 in second coil turns. Also, the person who parses in our group doesn't have it stop after any lapses in time. It's all connected. I've said this before in other threads but usually when I see people start throwing out numbers that usually doesn't mean anything to me until I know what their parse's parameters are set to as well as what responsibilities their job has. Parsing near 400 in T7 as a SMN kiting sounds pretty legit if you ask me. Then again, I don't play SMN ever so their numbers also don't mean much when compared to my own.

EDIT: As of today, I was told for at least the first half of the fight (t11) our SMN was maintaining 500 DPS. Again sounds pretty legit to me. No idea what he ended up at. I just ask for my numbers to compare to myself. My only point with any of this was to say that here our SMN is apparently pushing really high DPS and I've seen him several times use a battle rez when people (our bard; twice in the same run today) are dying for no apparent reason. He never seems to be running out of mana. I just don't know what other people are doing compared to him that make them so starved for mana. I'm not criticizing or arguing, just offering perspective from what I see with my group.

[Lavieh]

EDIT: As of today, I was told for at least the first half of the fight (t11) our SMN was maintaining 500 DPS. Again sounds pretty legit to me. No idea what he ended up at. I just ask for my numbers to compare to myself. My only point with any of this was to say that here our SMN is apparently pushing really high DPS and I've seen him several times use a battle rez when people (our bard; twice in the same run today) are dying for no apparent reason. He never seems to be running out of mana. I just don't know what other people are doing compared to him that make them so starved for mana. I'm not criticizing or arguing, just offering perspective from what I see with my group.

Can we have his gear? Our MNK, NIN and BLM are hovering around 600 when the add phase comes, usually 10-20 less depending on where we push.