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

[Osmond]

The only problem about SMN is that it's by far the hardest job to play and 95% playing this game are horrendously bad, thus everybody complaining about SMN. Get some Piety to your relic, use Pineapple juice...and bam...mana problems are no longer an issue, but no, better spend 10 million gil in 30 useless points of determination/crit that will boost your dmg by an astonishing...1%, while your BRD loses 20% of it because they have to sing ballad for you.

No wonder SE doesn't want parsers in this game, it would only reflect the incompetence of 95% of the player database.

If trolling make you feel better good for you.

[bennettaj]

The only problem about SMN is that it's by far the hardest job to play and 95% playing this game are horrendously bad, thus everybody complaining about SMN. Get some Piety to your relic, use Pineapple juice...and bam...mana problems are no longer an issue, but no, better spend 10 million gil in 30 useless points of determination/crit that will boost your dmg by an astonishing...1%, while your BRD loses 20% of it because they have to sing ballad for you.

No wonder SE doesn't want parsers in this game, it would only reflect the incompetence of 95% of the player database.

lol yea cuz 200ish extra MP will DEFINITELY fix SMN. you should work for SE. you'd be of great help to them

[Gallus]

And yet these replies further state the ignorance of the people playing this game. An i125 weapon can have up to 37 piety. Pineapple juice gives 17 piety.

54 piety are NOT 200 mp. Each point of piety roughly equals 7.2 MP, which means that 54 points of piety give you roughly 400 mp, not 200. Your mana ticks happen every 3 seconds and they have a 2% regen of your total mana (under combat). That means that 400 mp net you:

1 - 8 mp more every 3 seconds.
2 - greater pool of mana.
3 - greater mana regen through aetherflow too.

Do yourselves a favour. Buy a keeper's hymn (not the 37 piety from relic but will work too). Change your points from int to piety. Buy a pineapple juice. Go to a dummy. Start DPSing. When you guys get to your retirement pension and still don't have mana issues, we can continue having this conversation.

[Alberel]

And yet these replies further state the ignorance of the people playing this game. An i125 weapon can have up to 37 piety. Pineapple juice gives 17 piety.

54 piety are NOT 200 mp. Each point of piety roughly equals 7.2 MP, which means that 54 points of piety give you roughly 400 mp, not 200. Your mana ticks happen every 3 seconds and they have a 2% regen of your total mana (under combat). That means that 400 mp net you:

1 - 8 mp more every 3 seconds.
2 - greater pool of mana.
3 - greater mana regen through aetherflow too.

Do yourselves a favour. Buy a keeper's hymn (not the 37 piety from relic but will work too). Change your points from int to piety. Buy a pineapple juice. Go to a dummy. Start DPSing. When you guys get to your retirement pension and still don't have mana issues, we can continue having this conversation.

So with all your stats focused on MP regen mind showing us how your damage compares to all the other DPS jobs that are just stacking damage stats with no resource worries at all? If SMN were balanced around needing to build for MP regen then fine, but the job isn't, you're basically describing a workaround that sacrifices damage (though possibly less than running out of MP) but doesn't actually fix the issue here.

[Ghishlain]

So, there again, using energy drain over fester is a "deserved punishment" for you even though the dps loss is kind of unfair when you are directly in competition for tight dps check fights :/
Where you see being greedy with mana, I just see DPS optimization to be honest.

While I see your point, I don't disagree with Crevox's point either. Part of mastering a class is understand your strengths and limitations. Generally, optimized DPS comes with a price in resources usage and that's part of understanding your job.

However, two defining points run counter to this:
-TP based DPS almost always have a BRD available to play Paeon for them, this negating their resource issue
-SMN is compared to another job with the exact same gear choices that have LIMITLESS resources

Effectively, this removes the resource management aspect of every DPS job BUT SMN. As many have rightfully pointed out, there's no point for a BRD to play Ballad's for one DPS. However, this isn't an excuse for SMNs to forgo the tools given for them to go nuts on the "optimized DPS train". Unfortunately, this also makes SMN inherently weaker because they can't "go nuts" compared to the other DPS.

There are two ways to fix this aspect of SMN resource management:
(1) Make SMN more self-sustainable like BLM
(2) Rework BLM so instead of having limitless resources, they have a finite amount as well (thus giving more reason for a BRD to use Ballad in the first place)

This resource issue that SMNs face may also become less pronounce as more MP based DPS are introduced, increasing the need for BRD to play Ballads for their group to help sustain DPS. If S-E introduces a MP-DPS that has single target LB, that'll put BRD in an interesting position for TP if you got SMN/BLM/BRD/MP-DPS composition as there is more reason to play Ballad (that affects three DPS + healers) versus Paeon (which will affect the BRD + tanks). But we'll see if that ever happens.

I imagine at this point, S-E is waiting for 3.0 to drop and seeing how the new abilities shape up for SMN, though a dev post, frankly, on the matter stating "Please look forward to your changes in 3.0" would be nice.

[Mature]

Bonus points on piety is like might as well stop using smn all together. That's a huge dps drop by not putting all points into intelligence. I hope the least ct3 gear has ALOT of piety included.

[AdamFyi]

So I gave in and raided with my SMN just to see what all the fuss was all about. MP management was kinda a small issue during my time (mainly because I main a healer and am pretty comfortable with managing my MP). I'm not claiming that I did an amazing job; just decent is all. A good friend was nice enough to tag along and check my dps (Apparently I was doing around 390-ish on average). The main issue I usually see is that some summoners forego the use of Ruin in favour of Ruin II, and Energy Drain in favour of Fester. Some even opt to use Miasma II. This speeds up the amount of MP drained and how long it will last before exhausting your supply completely.

I do think some of the problem with it is how the Aetherflow stacks are used as a mechanic for the class in general. Scholars and Summoners play completely different roles in a party, and the main skill that ties them together is Energy Drain. While useful on a Scholar to be able to keep their MP up, Summoners have to sacrifice a Fester to regain their lost MP which is a big loss in damage due to the potency difference. This makes Energy Drain less desirable and most often unused. However, Energy Drain is a very important tool in the Summoner's kit and should be used to manage your MP if you start to dip too low.

Considering all the Arcanist's skills and how some of them rely on 'chance' for the buff to be active (Eye for an Eye, and Spell Speed buff from pets come to mind), I think the most appropriate method to 'fixing' the MP management issue is to give Fester a passive trait related to Energy Drain. Note that I do think Summoners are in a sweet spot right now and wouldn't need a lot of adjustments. They can do pretty fine on their own and can hold up against other jobs just fine.

Anyway, this passive would be somewhere along the lines of, 'Grants a 15% chance that upon casting Fester, your next Energy Drain will not consume a stack of Aetherflow'. The chance would be low enough that it's quite rare to see and at the same time, doesn't cause a huge fluctuation in Summoners overall damage nor would it affect the Scholar in any way (which is a big problem when trying to balance Summoners around it). This would allow summoners to do slightly more damage in the long run and should be able to sustain their MP should it proc enough. Though, I do think that this would hardly be necessary if you manage your MP well enough.

[Gallus]

So with all your stats focused on MP regen

It's not "all your stats". It's just 37 points of piety that could be 37 points of crit and that would boost your crit roughly by a 2.5%...which is not even a 1% increase in your DPS. And the food...what are you currently using anyway? Black Truffle Rissotto? You do realize food does not affect your pet do you...so the crit and det provided by that food are even more insignificant than they are already under normal circumstances. So saying "all your stats focused on MP regen" is a bit of an overexaggeration. You are probably exchanging a total of an 1 or at worst 2% DPS for complete permasustained damage and why not say it, more mobile and more reliable too (Ruin II).

[Gallus]

Bonus points on piety is like might as well stop using smn all together. That's a huge dps drop by not putting all points into intelligence. I hope the least ct3 gear has ALOT of piety included.

You did not understand anything. Of course your attribute points go to INT. My point was that...whoever that doesn't believe that 50ish piety gives you permasustained damage, he or she can try it by reallocating their 30 points from INT to Piety temporarily, buying an HQ pineapple juice and going to a dummy. This will have almost the same effect as if you'd put Piety on your relic weapon.

[Meya]

I'm a new player and I love Arcanist, was planning to stick with summoner but not so sure now if such words are used for thosewho play this class, I think I'll just avoid the hassle of being called names.