Can someone give me an in-depth explanation why Summoner is arguably the worst DPS?

[Sen_Terrechant]

I am actually a little outraged, I just did some parsing again (5 attempts on both SMN) ilvl 125 with 115 weapon. BLM = 502 on average / SMN = 457 on average over a 6-7 minute parse. And on my SMN I even used poison pots in my contagion, like seriously?

Sounds about right.

We have great DPS up until that 4ish minute mark and then bam, drops like a friggin rock.

[Sunako]

I am actually a little outraged, I just did some parsing again (5 attempts on both SMN) ilvl 125 with 115 weapon. BLM = 502 on average / SMN = 457 on average over a 6-7 minute parse. And on my SMN I even used poison pots in my contagion, like seriously?

Maybe you did something wrong? I can keep 500+ dps over 6- 7min dummy fight without using int or poison potions at all and with ilvl 126 gear. How much you can do with 130 weapon as blm?

[Skeith-Adeline]

Do you have a gear loadout Vivi? Id be interested in how you maintained that number with that ilvl weapon. My highest was 530 with an ilvl 130 weapon, but total ilvl 120

[Shizuna]

Sounds about right.

We have great DPS up until that 4ish minute mark and then bam, drops like a friggin rock.

I had people who were an ass and said that I suck and I should still be doing up to 500 dps at around 5 minutes. *shrug* I did 470-480 dps as ilvl 117 SMN with i130 book, and as a BLM I did about the 460-470 dps with ilvl 114 with i115 staff. Of course this was a long while ago. But this goes to show how much more ST damage a BLM does over a SMN.

Edit: All attempts are without int pots, food, poison pot, and party buff.

[Havenchild]

you guys harping on the complexity of summoner is funny. Monk plays pretty smoothly, prob more smooth than any other class, it sorta just flows and is very, very logical, you just have to read tooltips.

Casting ruin 2/sc shadowflare before you fester/pet buff isn't rocket science, nor is maintaining 3-5 dots. (bio, bio 2, miasma, miasma 2, shadow flare.) though I'd imagine that with current mp standards miasma 2 is out of the question. I will give it to you that summoner doesn't flow nearly as well as say monk and its flow of play reminds me more of nin than anything else.

Summoner is harder then what you seem to think. Definitely the hardest class to maximize on.

Lemme add a few things to that:

Weighing (in real time) Fester vs. Bane, which would better give you DPS, using this stack for Fester now, or saving it for Bane with the possibility of either having a well timed aetherflow skill pop up later when that stack would be truly needed, or making the wrong call and using the stack, and being ass'd out later to capitalize on a Bane situation if aetherflow doesn't come up in time.

Low on MP? Add Energy Drain to the mix. When should you start using Energy Drain, so you're not actually hurting yourself due to poor timing with downtime incoming. How many Energy Drains, will be needed to do what you intend on doing right this minute to not waste a stack on an Energy Drain when you can use a Fester instead.

Low MP, enough to put up one set of DoTs on one mob (Bio2 - Miasma Bio), you know your about to push the phase, should you redot the current mob thats about to go away for the fight thus losing full duration of your DoTs anyway, or let your DoTs fall off for a couple of seconds hitting your DPS hard now that no DoTs are ticking, to be able to DoT that new add that's gonna pop in a few more seconds.

You have to know a fight as well as a healer to an extent, but more so in the effect of having massive predictability in real time, (that changes mind you, with DPS increase or Decrease) so that you make NO WASTED MOVES due to the heavy MP constraints as is.

If anyone can say that Summoner is anything but the hardest DPS class to play effectively and maximize your DPS on, you are lying through your teeth or have never played SMN at the top level, and if you think all of that is still easy, try it first, while still managing everything you said and everything I added.

[Xisin]

I honestly think ninja gives more of a mind fuck than summoner ever will lol (to play optimally)l. All that situational context you just gave though is a every job in ffxiv kind of thing. it's not like we all play on scripts lol. I've played PLD SMN NIN and BLM in fcob by now, soon to be monk. So I have a good idea. (I played monk in 2.0/2.1 quite a bit but ya its been a while, mainly due to static itemization and gearing is why my monk fell out of use.) I'm by no means an absolute expert on all of those jobs though.

[Havenchild]

I honestly think ninja gives more of a mind fuck than summoner ever will lol (to play optimally)l. All that situational context you just gave though is a every job in ffxiv kind of thing. it's not like we all play on scripts lol

Again, do it before you can dismiss the difficulty. Considering you've downed T13, you should have enough knowledge to play a SMN properly since to you it's bread and butter. Now do so, and pull as high as your BLM. Come back with some parse comparisons of you're own and tell me it was as easy as your BLM to reach those numbers. Promise you it will blow your mind.

I'm by no means an absolute expert on all of those jobs though.

Oh, that's why it seems easy to you. Makes perfect sense.

[Xisin]

considering I can already beat my blm with my nin on single target... and we've already all pretty much agreed that smn is UP. then I don't think what you are saying makes sense. As in it's your opinion, and that's fine to have an opinion. Just don't try to get the game balanced on your own perception of difficulty. Seemingly what you want is for smn to pull superior numbers due to you thinking its harder than say NIN, or BLM, or MNK (everything.)

[Havenchild]

considering I can already beat my blm with my nin on single target... and we've already all pretty much agreed that smn is UP. then I don't think what you are saying makes sense. As in it's your opinion, and that's fine to have an opinion. Just don't try to get the game balanced on your own perception of difficulty. Seemingly what you want is for smn to pull superior numbers due to you thinking its harder than say NIN, or BLM, or MNK (everything.)

To be honest, I am part of those not necessarily in favor of a potency increase, but more so fixing the MP resource. Classes are also balanced by the end-game enviorment btw in the PVE scenario. (IE: Why would a Dragoon need a MDEF buff and Potency increase, if they were only gonna deal with Kraken in Sastasha?) If the class is being outdone in virtually every aspect, in the single target and AoE scenario, elaborate on what to bring the class for when all you build the fights around is DPS checks?


Why did countless amount of people switch off SMN when FCOB hit?

Why did countless amount of people switch off DRG when FCOB hit?

Why were DRGs formerly and SMNs currently, shunned on in FCOB?

Why did BLMs get a buff in SCOB???????

Why have the developers already acknowledged an imbalance on SMN class vs the others?

Once you're capable of rational thought, it becomes less about doing damage and more about, what needs to be corrected. If damage comes in the process, so be it. The class that becomes the crutch, needs to be rebalanced. That's what updates are for if you didn't know.

Asking for a ST boost is not a sin on the class either since it's already being wrecked in that environment by a BLM. Also SMN originally was a king of ST damage like MNK and DRG.

[Xisin]

to my knowledge the devs have never adjusted to difficulty other than release nin. (was the opposite, they didn't think players could handle mudras as well as they did, which resulted in the nerf of nin.) DRG was fine when fcob hit, we cleared 13 with a drg in the pt before they were buffed. My static dragoon is really good. DRG was not as dysfunctional as people thought it was earlier as well, pretty much what it came down to was that monk was better. Summoner is currently underpowered, not outright broken Most of the issues that summoner has is in spell speed, spell speed scaling interaction with caster and mp, and I've logically argued all of this. the pet passive trait summoner has is in my opinion broken, as in it it doesn't really do anything. Summoner utility comes in the form of other things rather than just the spells itself. The pet provides a 9th body, and it's the 2nd most mobile dps, and if its immobilized at any point it has the highest up time of any dps as bard cant attack while stunned, slept, etc. Garuda gives 0 cares about status effects, neither do the dots you have on the boss. The extra minute off on eye for an eye matters and I simply do not understand what most think is wrong with it. (I want to emphasize that there are unavoidable cc's in the game such as blue orbs in t10.)

If damage is equalized or higher on summoner than blm then blm goes extinct. Why is that? the reasons I listed earlier, why bring a blm when their aoe is simply overkill anyway? and if smns bring higher single target the 2nd highest aoe, all while being the 2nd and arguable first highest dps uptime, then why bother with the blm? blm simply needs to do more damage in the fairness of balance. Hell smn aoe is enough for all the turns and with a higher single target output (if buffed for higher ST) the kill time should be faster than with a blm, and that is what matters, not inflated flare numbers.

I have no clue where you are getting sastasha from, no where, anywhere have I implied poetics dungeons as imperative to balance. Maybe you should read the thread before you go about throwing insults?