Summoner or Blackmage

[Wintersandman]

I say play both. I do and I find different uses for each. I am still farming alex maps and SMN is by far the easiest to farm with, especially in regards to survivability. I also use SMN for Beast Tribe dailies and other various grind. Dot the enemy up move to next and let my pet finish them off or the dots whatever is faster.

Also in regards to casual raids I get mixed opinions on what to go as. Healer dies and on BLM I wish I could swift cast raise. But AoE Groups on SMN I wish I was BLM.

[Imoye]

Very few people that play SMN are actually happy with it. The job feels as if it was rushed and half-assed. It lacks decent viuals and connection to lore. Egis are a joke asthetically and could use a lot of work gameplay-wise to make them more interesting. BLM is a bit spammy for my taste, so I still prefer SMN.

[Havenae]

If you enjoy blm more than smn now. Stick to blm because the longer you play smn the more and more you're just going to feel disappointed. Its a slight difference at first but the effect snowballs.

Very few people that play SMN are actually happy with it. The job feels as if it was rushed and half-assed. It lacks decent viuals and connection to lore. Egis are a joke asthetically and could use a lot of work gameplay-wise to make them more interesting. BLM is a bit spammy for my taste, so I still prefer SMN.

and this is exactly why.

[loldrg]

BLM masterrace.

Better AoE and Single Target damage.

The base numbers for each SMN DoT is 135 potency every 3 seconds. Garuda adds 100. We're at 235. Ruin 1 and you're at 315. If you can do it, Ruin II + auto attacks gets the number closer to 340 potency on single target per GCD without Fester and Rouse. BLM does not even come close, especially due to RNG of procs and suffering a bigger DPS loss from movement.

On any fight involving <5 targets, Bane + Miasma II increase the SMN AoE potency to 155 (more than F2). BLM beats SMN at 5+ mobs but this only matters in dungeon SRs and not endgame. T12 and T13 (only fights that matter with 5+ adds being AoEd together at once) are short and SMNs Enkindle+Aerial Slash for all of those add phases give it the damage equivalent of 1.5 flares ontop of the other dots so it's not far behind in damage. Needing to hold DPS and focus single target on Big Bennus hurts BLM more than SMN as well IMO.

[Dextro]

BLM does not even come close.

Huh, where did you get this idea?
Were you ignoring Astral Fire's impact on potency when calculating all this on paper? Because the reality is far different from what you describe.

[Veqluna]

I prefer SMN atlest 1 in my team since they can maintaining their Dmg while running dodge stuff and I don't think SMN do less less Dmg than BLM tho It's just about that burst dmg of BLM and SMN has raise

[Craiger]

I prefer SMN atlest 1 in my team since they can maintaining their Dmg while running dodge stuff and I don't think SMN do less less Dmg than BLM tho It's just about that burst dmg of BLM and SMN has raise

I don't want to sound like an elitist, but if a BLM is good at his/her job, they will produce more DPS. If you have to constantly move, then yes, SMN wins on DPS, but there isn't really that much content where you can't stand still for longer periods.

The only reason they haven't buffed SMN yet, is because of 3.0 and more specifically the SS change... Cause if they buff SMN now to be balanced, it could get out of hand in the expansion.

It all depends on how big of a change the SS will be, but the SS stat weight for SMN right now is something like 0.098, while Det is 0.284...

Lets say you have 481 SS right now, that gives you around 47 weighted int with the current SS system... Now lets say SS gets buffed enough that it gives you a stat weight of 0.22 for SMN (would be great if it was that high), then you would get 105 weighted int, that increase is enormous, and it would make the balancing between BLM and SMN very hard (BLM wouldn't gain much from the SS buff). Hard if they had buffed SMN now that is...

[Sanguisio]

Play the one you like most.

But a few points:
-Both pull caster decent numbers in coil neither should have an issue pulling 500+
-BLM is slightly easier to gear IMO less min/max tinkering
-Will get less dodgy looks as a BLM, most people assume SMNs are horrible.

[Skeith-Adeline]

~~~

I don't think you know what you're talking about, at all. Like, at all

[PetiteMalFleur]

The only reason they haven't buffed SMN yet, is because of 3.0 and more specifically the SS change... Cause if they buff SMN now to be balanced, it could get out of hand in the expansion.

They could rebalance in the expansion. The reason they haven't been buffed is because their skills are bound with scholar dps skills.