Shadow Flare needs a new effect.

[Zamii]

i'll probably be criticized heavily for this, but you all need to remember, summoner as a class is not in a terribly bad place right now dps wise, its just the current gear set is extremely poor for the class, but with heavensward bringing a drastic change to skill/spell speed stats, this may no longer be the case (especially with the spell speed trait summoners have that is so easily forgotten about)

so any buffs would need to be very small if at all.

[Crescent_Dusk]

It's not just DPS lacking due to itemization. Look at the records, summoner is way behind black mage and even bard.

You can make the DPS equal on a single target but a black mage will still have much better aoe, the black mage can burst key adds, and the black mage has his teleport and mana wall to boot.

It's not just DPS it's utility and personal defenses.

[Bigcat9715]

i would LOVE vulnerability up on SF!!!

I was only using vulnerability as an example. There are alot of other debuffs in the game like:

Silence
Blind
Poison
Slow
Heavy
Determination Down
HP Penalty
Strength Down

[Gamer3427]

I had a nice long post typed out, but cursed character limit, (2510 characters on a 1000 character limit, lol), so here's the abridged version....

I don't look at the Arcanist family as a pure DPS class, it's meant more in a support vein, with dealing damage being a secondary purpose. Comparing the damage of a Summoner to a Black Mage is like comparing the healing abilities of a Paladin to a White Mage. By not having our support effects take place on bosses, we're essentially having our abilities cut in half. Don't get me wrong, I love my class, especially when I'm taking on FATE bosses or large groups solo, but when I'm in a dungeon or raid and can't use what I consider the primary effect of half my abilities I do feel a little jipped. Against most bosses, we either lose the status effect of our abilities or they have little to no effect, (blind and heavy are particularly useless since after the tank grabs them they're locked down and their attacks always hit regardless).....

[Gamer3427]

Sorry to double post, but character limit.....

Despite what I said, I'm perfectly fine with Shadow Flare's ability being a slow effect. The slow effect is incredibly useful for cutting down on damage when it works. I went into the Wanderer's Palace as a Scholar earlier with a few friends and being able to crowd slow the adds made healing our tank a lot easier.....

[pandabearcat]

I think it should apply a debuff that kills all BLMs.

Also you can just go back in and edit your post to put in more than 1000 characters. Welcome to SE's authoritarian dictatorship full of abitrary rules designed to stifle actual...foruming.

[Gamer3427]

I think it should apply a debuff that kills all BLMs.

Also you can just go back in and edit your post to put in more than 1000 characters. Welcome to SE's authoritarian dictatorship full of abitrary rules designed to stifle actual...foruming.

Yea, I actually learned that from another thread I read on right after I finished posting in here, lol.....

[Crescent_Dusk]

Sorry to double post, but character limit.....

Despite what I said, I'm perfectly fine with Shadow Flare's ability being a slow effect. The slow effect is incredibly useful for cutting down on damage when it works. I went into the Wanderer's Palace as a Scholar earlier with a few friends and being able to crowd slow the adds made healing our tank a lot easier.....

The way you bypass character limit is you type your whole thing, then select all but a single sentence of your text and "Cut". Post that single sentence. Then edit your post and paste the rest of the text after that sentence.

The character limit is absurdly dumb, but there's a workaround for it.

[Fatshine]

Maybe it's just me, because I play both SMN and BLM, so I see Smn underwhelming. SMN abilities like Miasma 2 and Shadowflare has such a low potency that the only way to make them good is if you have them up all the time. Hell I barely see other Smns use miasma 2 when I'm running dungeons.

Most Summoners have no clue how to properly AOE. The day you see a SMN Dots > Bane + Aerial Slash > Miasma II > Blizzard 2 spam in a dungeon, that's the moment you see one of the best Summoners around. Hell, add Rouse/Spur, Aerial Blast, and Fester between GCD abilities, and watch mobs melt. BLM may be king, but most are ignorant with SMN.

[Fatshine]

It's not just DPS lacking due to itemization. Look at the records, summoner is way behind black mage and even bard.

You can make the DPS equal on a single target but a black mage will still have much better aoe, the black mage can burst key adds, and the black mage has his teleport and mana wall to boot.

It's not just DPS it's utility and personal defenses.

Umm, no. Bard is still the lowest DPS, and BLM beats SMN if both players are of equal skill. I rarely get beaten by other BLM since getting my Zeta recently and testing my own BiS gear set. To see a Summoner at it's peak is shocking. Just the other night I was at 550+ DPS on T13, equal to the MONK when that should never happen outside AOE.