I feel like I've won a battle

[Galand]

I would love to see the quotes and patch notes on how Summoner is being "heavily reworked"

Oh you mean the spell Tri-Diaster is having its name changed to Tri-Bind?? Did anyone not laugh at the reason why they made the spell so weak? Because if it lived up to its "name" it would have been too powerful. That alone is the saddest thing I've ever heard.

Also if they simply change the spells name, that still leaves Tri-Bind as a completely weak spell for level 50

[Higashikata]

I would love to see the quotes and patch notes on how Summoner is being "heavily reworked"

Oh you mean the spell Tri-Diaster is having its name changed to Tri-Bind?? Did anyone not laugh at the reason why they made the spell so weak? Because if it lived up to its "name" it would have been too powerful. That alone is the saddest thing I've ever heard.

Also if they simply change the spells name, that still leaves Tri-Bind as a completely weak spell for level 50

Wait what? Level 50? Tri-disaster(bind) at level 50?!

I'm starting to think you don't actually play summoner.

[Trespar]

I play SMN all the time I can't remember when I got Tri-disaster, either. To be honest, sometimes I forget it even exists. It just a really forgettable spell.

[pandabearcat]

Not every spell needs to be applicable all the time.

For instance, I used tri-disaster plenty back in the old wanderer's palace speedrun days...you bind the enemies outside of the boss gate.

That was awesome?

Like I'm not sure what you want here. If all of our skills did awesome damage we'd still just end up picking the ones that do the most and ignoring everything else.

Granted, SMN -does- need an actual useful AoE spell, but our AoE dots with bane, miasma II and sflare actually amount to a decent dps, without destroying our mana.

Of course not compared to Fire II (not even going to mention flare here), because BLM aoe is broken and the devs are stupid in thinking that an infinite resource class is balanced against all other classes in AoE.

[Cynfael]

Of course not compared to Fire II (not even going to mention flare here), because BLM aoe is broken and the devs are stupid in thinking that an infinite resource class is balanced against all other classes in AoE.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that the devs never claimed that BLM or any other class was intended to be "balanced" against the others in AoE. That's like calling foul because MNK has a ridiculously high single-target damage ceiling that BLM can't touch outside of brief, RNG-powered bursts.

And yes, Tri-Disaster is garbage for anything other than PvP. A slow-casting, low potency AoE Bind when no one cares about Binding anything in PvE. The WP example is a legitimate use for speedrun utility, but the tank can just as easily sit on the boss gate and keep the mobs there until the lockout kicks in. I'm very happy that they are renaming this skill and providing a new "Tri-Disaster" in 3.0.

[pandabearcat]

I'm not sure what you're saying here, that because they never claimed balance that balance isn't needed...?

Ideally all classes should be able to be competent in both.

Or to put it another way, there should be a fairly even spread of dps so that no dps is top on every fight.

[Cynfael]

I'm not sure what you're saying here, that because they never claimed balance that balance isn't needed...?

Ideally all classes should be able to be competent in both.

Or to put it another way, there should be a fairly even spread of dps so that no dps is top on every fight.

I guess what I'm saying is that their balance game isn't about having all classes put out the same numbers in all situations. It's more about ensuring that all classes be generally viable and desirable in group play, which they've done pretty well at accomplishing. When BLM was undesirable for raid content, they got tweaked; when SMN suffered badly from MP problems, they got a tweak to make them more self-sustainable.

I don't think it's reasonable or even particularly fun to expect that every class perform the same in every fight. E.g. Part of the fun of playing BLM is having the best AoE in the game, while part of the fun of playing MNK/DRG/NIN is having untouchable single-target DPS if you play it right. If anything the "balance" favors the latter group since high AoE DPS is rarely required in more difficult content, while a high single-target damage ceiling is ALWAYS useful :P

[pandabearcat]

There were fights in fcob progression (namely t4) that you really almost couldn't do (or do nearly as easily) without a BLM.

This is the problem in a nutshell. You're right that we don't need everyone doing "the same" on every fight. But no class should be borderline mandatory for any fight.

If this is true for some of the single target fights, that is also incorrect.

[Alberel]

Apparently the line, "if you don't enjoy a particular job, try another" applies to every job but Summoner.

To be fair there are a lot of players out there, myself included, who enjoy pet classes as a gameplay mechanic. In every MMO I play, if there is a pet class that's what I play. For me personally the fact that SMN is this game's only pet job is what leaves me wanting to improve this job rather than switch to another; I already know I don't enjoy them as much as SMN.

As for the job changes in the expansion: we still don't know what other things have been changed. They only mentioned tri-disaster specifically in the live letter but had previously discussed some potentially more significant changes. The live letter served only as an overview of how the jobs would play in the expansion; most of the new skills weren't even named for most jobs and we were only given a few scant details regarding changes to current skills. I think it is too early to draw any conclusions regarding what changes we're going to see.

I'm personally happy with the Dreadwyrm Trance but I'm admittedly disappointed by their stance on new egis (primarily because their reasoning for omitting them was weak). I'm going to wait and see what this pet glamour system is before I grab my pitchfork though. If they give us the ability to summon any egi we want and have it perform any of the three roles we currently have I will actually be very happy.

[pandabearcat]

As a pet job, SMN behaves identically to WoW's hunters and warlocks.

As in, pets basically do their own thing and are a line item on your recount, nothing more.

What games have you been playing where a pet was significantly part of your gameplay experience?