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

[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.

[loreleidiangelo]

An easy fix would be to break the connection fester has with aetherflux, or make it like a bard's bloodletter

Making it like Bloodletter would be ludicrously overpowered in situations where SMN can Bane. A BRD multi-dotting to fish for River of Blood will use up a lot of TP and several GCDs to do so...a SMN with Bane could achieve the same result instantly. In addition, BRD only has two dots that can produce a proc, whereas if Fester "procs" were triggered by any SMN dot (including Shadow Flare), SMN would have a whopping 5. Traiting SMN's "Enhanced Pet Actions" to give another Fester might be an okay alternative, idk.

I like the idea of simply removing Fester from Aetherflow consumption the best, though. Not only would burning stacks on Energy Drain make SMN self-sustainable, it would be a DPS boost as well, as Drain can be used off GCD and DOES have potency, even if it's small.

[Shizuna]

snip

Well, I can't make sense of your post because it contradicts somewhat so I didn't even want to try to understand it. What really is the point you're trying to make in that post? Also Aetherflow mp returns are dependent on how much mp you have; you restore 20% of your max mp. It may not be the best fix, but it is the quickest and somewhat tiny fix that kinda matters at this point, and it doesn't affect the SCH counterpart. I don't want to see a SCH buff/nerf coming into effect just because of how many issues a SMN have.

I play both SMN (main character) and SCH (alt character). A change to both Aetherflow and Energy Drain that you're suggesting right now would make it so SCH's have no mp issues whatsoever and can up their dps potential as a healer. Basically, they can use more of their stacks to Lustrate and use Sacred Soil. Really good SCH (with reliable WHM) could probably be in Cleric Stance for like 40%-60% in high-end fights. Right now SCH is at a good position for being a healer and has decent dps to help out with pushing. They can even get more dps than a tank, depending on the fights.

[Akiza]

Any dps simulator will show that the longer the encounter the lower the Summoner's dps will be regardless of mana issues. There is something inherently broken with the Summoner's design.
Final Fantasy XI- Summoner's game play was fun but was useless in endgame content because it was a nerf healer and is poorly optimized
Final Fantasy XIV-Summoner's game play is boring and has become useless in high end raiding content because of broken class combination and poor optimization.

Good job SE you have successfully found two broken game play styles for the Summoner.

A good way to fix the Summoner is to take the Summoner from Final Fantasy Tactics and adapt it to this game.

[HakuroDK]

snip

Final Fantasy Tactics - Summoner's gameplay included powerful, very large AoE magic that depleted MP extremely fast and had no way to regenerate MP.

...which basically boils down to the exact same issue you're saying FFXIV's Summoner has, only significantly more skewed. "Okay, I'm going to deal 2x as much damage as a BLM for the first five minutes, aaaaand Ballad plz"

[Orrias]

Well, I can't make sense of your post because it contradicts somewhat so I didn't even want to try to understand it. What really is the point you're trying to make in that post? Also Aetherflow mp returns are dependent on how much mp you have; you restore 20% of your max mp. It may not be the best fix, but it is the quickest and somewhat tiny fix that kinda matters at this point, and it doesn't affect the SCH counterpart. I don't want to see a SCH buff/nerf coming into effect just because of how many issues a SMN have.
I play both SMN (main character) and SCH (alt character). A change to both Aetherflow and Energy Drain that you're suggesting right now would make it so SCH's have no mp issues whatsoever and can up their dps potential as a healer. Basically, they can use more of their stacks to Lustrate and use Sacred Soil. Really good SCH (with reliable WHM) could probably be in Cleric Stance for like 40%-60% in high-end fights. Right now SCH is at a good position for being a healer and has decent dps to help out with pushing. They can even get more dps than a tank, depending on the fights.

You found my post contradicting, and hence "didn't want to try to understand" it, and yet you want to know what "is the point [I'm] trying to make in that post"... (¬.¬)7

As this is a SMN orientated thread, what I mention is going to be related to them, and not SCHs. Why would I advocate adding more Aetherflow stacks to SCHs..? I know full well that the Jobs are intertwined, and I take iit for granted that the people posting here have the intelligence to know that too.

In any case, my post before the one you quoted made mention that I thought "Aetherflow is also a nuissance, as any buffs it could potentially receive are, under the current Job system, [are] going to be subject to watering down due to it being a ACN ability". I've also mentioned in several other thread posts that having SMN & SCH linked via traits, and crucially Aetherflow, is a bad idea. Personally, I'm all for splitting the two Jobs apart from one another, or removing the shared traits factor between the Jobs.

In regards as to why I'd like to see more Aethflow stacks, as opposed to PIE or stat 'band aides', if you play SMN competitively, then you'll know that Festers are needed to keep up with every other dps apart from BRD, in FCoB. As it stands, once the initial stacks (that can be used from the start of the fight) are gone, and you now have to wait for Aetherflow to come off of CD, your dps drops very quickly, because you have nothing with which to spike your dps. I was arguing that SMNs need more stacks, not SCH's, however, that doesn't seem likely given that it is an ACN ability, as is Energy Drain.

As for Energy Drain, because BRD's won't sing ballads for SMNs only in FCoB (as it's a dps loss), a SMN has to resort to either mp pots or Energy Drain. If you were to use Energy Drain instead of Fester, then you've lost a huge chunk of damage, and, the mp returns on its use are meager (e.g. ~250-275 mp when it doesn't crit, and ~400-430 on a crit, and Energy Drain hardly ever crits). It is essentially a waste of Aetherflow stacks for a SMN and should have the Aetherlfow stack requirement removed from it and it's potency increased to improve mp returns.

Even if you were to buff Energy Drain, and you were to 'solve' the mp issues SMN has in FCoB, you haven't solved the problem of them dropping such a large amount of dps due to not having an Aetherflow stack at-hand to be able to fester. Both SMN & BRD are inherently flawed, as they both rely heavily on nuanced fight mechanics to cover up the fact that they peak quick, but fade to a timid lull, whilst over Jobs either treadmill up to a high plateau (e.g. MNK/ NIN/ DRG), or have the ability to spike their dps based on lucky procs (i.e. BLM).


.

[Akiza]

Final Fantasy Tactics - Summoner's gameplay included powerful, very large AoE magic that depleted MP extremely fast and had no way to regenerate MP.

...which basically boils down to the exact same issue you're saying FFXIV's Summoner has, only significantly more skewed. "Okay, I'm going to deal 2x as much damage as a BLM for the first five minutes, aaaaand Ballad plz"

If we did twice the damage as a Black Mage in the firsts five minutes it will make up for our dps drastically dropping off to 185 dps for the remainder of fight.

[Viridiana]

If we did twice the damage as a Black Mage in the firsts five minutes it will make up for our dps drastically dropping off to 185 dps for the remainder of fight.

But it would unbalance the 5 minute fights. Better solution would be to make it so SMN dps doesn't drop so dramatically.

[ShinryuReishiki]

As for Energy Drain, because BRD's won't sing ballads for SMNs only in FCoB (as it's a dps loss), a SMN has to resort to either mp pots or Energy Drain. If you were to use Energy Drain instead of Fester, then you've lost a huge chunk of damage, and, the mp returns on its use are meager (e.g. ~250-275 mp when it doesn't crit, and ~400-430 on a crit, and Energy Drain hardly ever crits). It is essentially a waste of Aetherflow stacks for a SMN and should have the Aetherlfow stack requirement removed from it and it's potency increased to improve mp returns.

Energy Drain restores a fixed amount of MP regardless of damage done; the HP restoration is what's based on damage.

[Akiza]

But it would unbalance the 5 minute fights. Better solution would be to make it so SMN dps doesn't drop so dramatically.

The Final Fantasy Tactics Summoner was AoE nuke with friendly fire and Pets provide AoE nukes, Crowd Control, Support, Tanking and Heals. That's a good solution for Summoner since Black Mage is sustained dps already.