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

[Viridiana]

Shadow flare is pretty useless. Its really weak and a lot of the bosses are immune to slow, so why even use it outside of killing adds?

It's more damage, and more damage per MP, than Ruin. Why would you not use it, even disregarding the Slow?

[Romsca]

Ok, really. I'll explain my point better.

Yes, antibody sucks. But my summoner supervirus still trumps black mage and white mage virus in the event that an add spawns and scholar supervirus is on cooldown. I can think of a few times when there are adds in a boss fight and when more than one spawns.

Next e4e becomes stronger the more people in the group that use it. Let's limit it to just acn, sch and smn. That's 1 minute up time 1 minute down time. Now, sch, smn, whm, blm have it and all in the group. That looks like this; sch+smn 1 minute uptime, whm+blm 1 minute uptime sch+smn cooldown finished! sch+smn 1 minute uptime, 1 minute down time followed by all 4 cooldowns being finished. And having a couple players with it means both tanks can have it when dealing with adds and boss at same time.

And right now, no fixes or changes or adjustments or whatever from Square Enix, yes using resurrection is bad for summoner, except if for some reason both healers are down. It is flawed because of our mana pool size.

Finally, let us look at the value of the cross class skills smn/sch <-> blm. Surecast sucks and I don't need nor want blizzard 2. So only thing left of value from blm is swiftcast. Smn/sch gave up virus and e4e, both have decent value. How about blm give up scythe, swiftcast, sleep, and manaward. To sweeten the pot blm can have e4e, virus, resurrection and ruin.

Point is, utility skills are valuable when you use them every single time the are off cooldown, and in the case of virus when antibody is not present.

[Cebo]

This is a lie. Let's look at those utility spells.

• Super Virus is reduced to a regular Virus because you have a Scholar. So both BLM and SMN Virus is negated.
• Eye for an Eye can be used by BLM, they are negated.
• Combat raise is not viable. You need mana and healers can handle 2 to 3 raises easily. In farm content, you will never combat raise because your party won't die to farm content. The only unique utility spell becomes void.

You missed my point, since it appears we'd be in agreement. I'm only saying SMN utility is better than BLM's in a vacuum, if you ignore the fact that other classes can provide that same utility, notably scholars. Since SMN utility is already covered by other classes, they don't bring anything of value to the raid.

[Odowla]

Point is, utility skills are valuable when you use them every single time the are off cooldown, and in the case of virus when antibody is not present.

Both Aikaal and I just said, WHM and BLM Virus is equal to SMN Virus on Adds. There's ONE add in FCoB that does magic damage. ONE. Supervirus only lets virus affect magic damage. Sooooo... pretty much SMN virus = BLM/WHM Virus. There's also ONE add in SCoB that does magic Damage; The Ghosts of Meracydia in t9. And the damage you'd want to virus is unmitigable, anyways. BCoB doesnt have any that I can think of. So yeah, tell me when Virusing an add as a SMN is better than a WHM or a BLM?

E4E is unreliable, though - you could have it up for 3 minutes straight and have it never proc. But yeah, its a great spell, right? It COULD be useful.. but again, WHM and the BLM can have it, so it's not like SCH + SMN is > SCh/WHM/BLM by any significant margin, even considering the RNG aspect of E4E.

Surecast is great, actually - there are some hits that you get interupted, and using Surecast prevents that.

Blizz 2 has its uses, albeit not very many of them.

BLM has actual Unique Utility though; Manawall/Ward/Apocatastasis are unique in function and are exclusive to BLM only.

[Aikaal]

I know you are really convinced and trying hard but...

Yes, antibody sucks. But my summoner supervirus still trumps black mage and white mage virus in the event that an add spawns and scholar supervirus is on cooldown. I can think of a few times when there are adds in a boss fight and when more than one spawns.

There is not a single add that is worth virusing in this game that deal magic damage except the Sin at T13 that don't even matter. You'd still prefer Apoc the warrior for an Ahk Morn over a second super virus.

Next e4e becomes stronger the more people in the group that use it. Let's limit it to just acn, sch and smn. That's 1 minute up time 1 minute down time. Now, sch, smn, whm, blm have it and all in the group. That's now 3 minutes up time, 1 minute down time followed by all 4 cooldowns being finished.

This is true but you can,t relly on E4E. It's a proc chance. It is useful during adds phases like T12 and T13. WHm and SCH already have it. What,s the point to have two characters with two minute CD E4E? You don't need it up all the time.

And right now, no fixes or changes or adjustments or whatever from Square Enix, yes using resurrection is bad for summoner, except if for some reason both healers are down. It is flawed because of our mana pool size.

Yet again, it's a spell that both healers have. They have better mana then you and they'll take priority over you. In farm content, people don't die also.

Finally, let us look at the value of the cross class skills smn/sch <-> blm. Surecast sucks and I don't need nor want blizzard 2. So only thing left of value from blm is swiftcast. Smn/sch gave up virus and e4e, both have decent value. How about blm give up scythe, swiftcast, sleep, and manaward. To sweeten the pot blm can have e4e, virus, resurrection and ruin.

• Surecast has uses. It's not a waste. It was potent in T5.
• Blizzard II is 50 Potency per target. It's potent in AoE for SMN. Miasma II, Enkindle, Shadowflare are up and you contagion + bane on 4 targets (Like T12 and T13) 200 Potency > 80 Potency. Blizzard II is shit for BLMs.
• Sleep has no use in raid.
• Manaward is my level 30 ability jerk.
• Resurrection would give too much utility to BLM and I wouldn't even use.

Point is, utility skills are valuable when you use the every single time the are off cooldown, and in the case of virus when antibody is not present.

Any good Scholar will refuse someone to slip Viruses on the boss. It will screw him over.

[Romsca]

Summoner virus reduces str, dex, int, and mnd by 15%. Whm/blm only str and dex. Summoner virus still better. What you are discussing is content design flaws. Not summoners fault that Square Enix made the damage types physical or unmitigable, and SCoB turn 2 final add is caster type. Also from a lore point there is no reason why Arcanist/summoner can't use scathe, sleep or manaward, which are thaumaturge skills, not black mage. Job skills are not available for cross class, only the base class skills are.

[Aikaal]

Summoner virus reduces str, dex, int, and mnd by 15%. Whm/blm only str and dex. Summoner virus still better. What you are discussing is content design flaws. Not summoners fault that Square Enix made the damage types physical or unmitigable, and SCoB turn 2 final add is caster type. Also from a lore point there is no reason why Arcanist/summoner can't use scathe, sleep or manaward, which are thaumaturge skills, not black mage. Job skills are not available for cross class, only the base class skills are.

And... what if you're ask to Virus an add that have 0 Magical ability? It reduces your Virus to the same level than BLM. Since you have a Scholar and you are compared to BLM, you take the BLM spot. BLMs are asked to Virus none magic dps adds.

*EDITS*

You face a Warrior in PvP. The BLM uses Virus. It is efficient, the warrior only deals Physical. The SMN fights the Warrior, he viruses him. The warrior lsoes his magic stats. He lost the same than the BLM's Virus.

[Romsca]

I know you are really convinced and trying hard but...



There is not a single add that is worth virusing in this game that deal magic damage except the Sin at T13 that don't even matter. You'd still prefer Apoc the warrior for an Ahk Morn over a second super virus.

.

This is true but you can,t relly on E4E. It's a proc chance. It is useful during adds phases like T12 and T13. WHm and SCH already have it. What,s the point to have two characters with two minute CD E4E? You don't need it up all the time.



Yet again, it's a spell that both healers have. They have better mana then you and they'll take priority over you. In farm content, people don't die also

• Surecast has uses. It's not a waste. It was potent in T5.
• Blizzard II is 50 Potency per target. It's potent in AoE for SMN. Miasma II, Enkindle, Shadowflare are up and you contagion + bane on 4 targets (Like T12 and T13) 200 Potency > 80 Potency. Blizzard II is shit for BLMs.
• Sleep has no use in raid.
• Manaward is my level 30 ability jerk.
• Resurrection would give too much utility to BLM and I wouldn't even use.

Any good Scholar will refuse someone to slip Viruses on the boss. It will screw him over.

content design flaw, not profession flaw
As opposed to not having it up as much as possible? Guess we should scrap out block, parry, dodge, misses...
No arguement on that single situation.
Niche.
Niche.
This isn't Final Raid: Coils of Bahamut. Lot more content outside.
That's nice.
See first and sixth sentence.
Glad to know resurrection has utility
That's fine, I'll virus the adds instead.

[Odowla]

I mean.

Raise on a Black mage would be so absurdely broken, it literally would not matter if you had a smn or a sch or a whm or an acn.

A blm with res is literally a free res that can be done instantly every 60 seconds, or has a hardcast time of 8 seconds.
It would cost 0 MP.

Blizzard 3 > Raise > full mp again.

No problems there though, right? Nah, a free battle raise is totally balanced.

[Romsca]

Are we balancing PvE around PvP now? I've seen how that goes and will be a game killer for me.