We NEED Sustain back-SMN

[Claviusnex]

The difference here is that it's part of the Red Mage design, while you only have Physick because they just don't remove it from you while you start as an Arcanist (and I guess they still want people who want to level Arcanist for Scholar to still have early access to a healing spell, but I agree it's kind of a waste for a skill spot, then). You are a unique case in this game, the only class having 2 jobs after (and with different roles). This is why they can just design "well it won't be part of the SMN design as we just want it to be for the Scholar". I guess Physick is still useful for the Palace of the Dead when someone has the mimic debuff or when the heals are block and there is no healer in the party. And also in very early game of course.

They could replace Physick with Sustain when you decide to take the Summoner path.

[TR_RA]

I have a bunch of complaints about the new SMN, but I literally have 0 issues with losing sustain. I can see if you're soloing sure, but in any raid scenario I use it extremely rarely. How are you guys killing your pets so often? And even in soloing I just tank the mob myself and burst the enemy down like any other caster/ranged dps would do.

I only used SMN in solo situations. I hate it in groups, but great for hard FATEs or msq duties.

[TR_RA]

I came here just to make the same post, glad to see it was already here, meaning I'm not the only one severely perturbed that it's gone. I do not understand SE's logic at all in making a job that uses pets but removes the ability to keep them alive - both on SMN and SCH side. It isn't that big an issue on SCH since you have the MND to heal normally, but for SMN it's even more of a deathcall to the job itself. I was never a fan of SMN except for MSQ and difficult FATEs, but without a way to heal the pet, the job is a total /fail.

As someone else said, why not add a regen effect to physik on pets? or make it so for a SMN, it's based off INT rather than MND. It's very clear that you guys didn't think about this removed ability at all and how it would affect the job - and especially, those who use it as a MAIN

[Ryuko]

When I heard we were losing Sustain, I spent my last week or two working on getting the Pal-Less Palace II achievement (solo to floor 100+)... I had a feeling it would be muuuuch harder to solo without Sustain. And it is. (I still don't know what that Sustain potion does... if it is for you or your pet... or if it's just a HoT they are giving everyone... haven't been back in Palace since Stormblood.) I will tell you this though -- without Sustain, soloing 100+ will be *really* hard... even if you do use a Steel on bosses. Perhaps not impossible, but definitely harder than it was.

But... the thing that bothers me the most? The way the lack of Sustain makes Aetherpact/Devotion more difficult to position.

I'm kind of *loving* the addition of Aetherpact/Devotion. I love being able to pick and choose who I'm going to buff. But, my pet makes this decision based on their distance from the person I want to give the buff to. If I want to give it to a tank, I have to kind of position it outside of cleaving range (but still closer than the other people -- including melee who much be going from the back to the flank on a frequent basis). I'd typically choose the flank. If I want to give it to a ranged, that's easy enough, but if I want to give it to anyone close enough to the boss to have to dodge AoEs... my pet is likely to get hit too. And then I have no way to heal it. Also, if people stand near my pet because they WANT the buff, they also might drop their AoEs on my pet. And I am powerless to help my pet. If I wanted it to avoid AoEs, I'd keep it away from eeeeeverything. But, that's really not an option if I want to poinpoint who is getting this buff. I guess in a raid setting, it could be coordinated with your party better (who stands where for the buff), but it's frustrating in a normal setting.

Physick is so, so, so weak... and the other thing to remember is that it has gotten comparatively *weaker* since SMN was introduced in ARR. Initially, Physick wasn't that bad because the gap between MND and INT was not as wide. In fact, spam-healing your tank with Physick after throwing the healer a Swiftcast+Res was a viable way to save your team. But... with every expansion, this gap gets wider and wider, and Physick remains the same strength... so Physick is nearly useless for SMN and there's really no point in spamming it unless you are reaaaaally desperate. So instead, I have to sit there hoping my healer is going to give my pet a little extra love once in a while. I hate watching my pet die. I used to always watch my pet to throw out a Sustain. And, even with Sustain, there were some fights I really had to pay attention to positioning for (like Shiva when it was current content... you had to constantly be moving your pet around to avoid the bow attack). I never complained about that, but now it would be impossible to keep pets alive during certain fights no matter what you do... it's frustrating. I've yet to do endgame stuff (slowly working my way to 70), but I can imagine this frustrating me a lot in a raid setting where AoEs deal a *lot* of damage and the healer has more important things to do than single target heal my pet.

[EaMett]

I came to the forums just for this one thread. My pet keeps dying in dungeons. Either because healers aren't aoe healing or because boss aoes are giving too much damage.. Honestly I don't know which and it's besides the point anyways because the point is: I can't do anything about it. What kind of a shitty Arcanist do I need to be to be able to give my pet life force to exist but not to heal?

I've even tried micro managing my pet out of aoes and the delay in the pets response is just outright horrendous.

Also titan-egi has essentially lost it's meaning for soloing.

So please return sustain, or at least place pets as party members so the healers can see their hp. That wouldn't solve titan-egi soloing but it's a good start.

[Steel_Arrow]

What dungeons do so much damage to pets that AoE heals can't keep them alive?

Palace of the Dead. The removal of sustain means summoner is no longer one of the viable solo classes.

I'd know - I wrote the book on it.

The tank pet couldn't even hold up against the level 60 quest mob. It's most decidedly an overnerf. They've screwed the pooch in multiple ways.

It was so pivotal that the class is no longer capable of doing content of which it previously was capable.

Your decision to never do anything but sit in the dungeon finder queue does not diminish its importance to other play styles.

[Ariomi]

But they heal you making you able to beat any fight intended to be beaten by a single dps job.

MNK has Fists of Earth given them damage reduction (making them tankier) and Bloodbath/2nd Wind, why aren't they allowed to complain that they can't solo any hunt or fate? SMNs have to get of their high horse, esp. since they are one of the strongest dps classes anyway.

You're wrong in every regard. First and foremost, Summoner is the weakest dps class right now.

https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17#boss=42 You can notice how they are lower then Machinist and Bard that are support dps. 200 Dps lower then red mage with less utility then red mage, and 400 dps lower then black mage. This is the case for summoner is every fight.

Titan isn't this gamebreakinig pet as you make him out to be. Monks with fists of earth, Bloodbath and Second Wind are far more tankier then titan is, and Red Mage says hello as a class that can tank, dps and heal. Tell me, did you ever notice how most classes can reduce damage or heal themselves significantly? Monk as you mention as Fists of the earth, Ninja have shade shift, samurai have third eye, black mage has mana wall and the list goes on. Summoner has 0 ways to mitigate damage, and no noticeable self healing. Titan as you mentioned, disappears when you summon Bahamut, meaning that if you want Titan to tank, you have to give up on you strongest dps moves anyways, otherwise he vanishes when you summon bahamut, and you will be tanking instead. My Red Mage can solo level 60 dungeons, every time I get 60 dungeon in wondrous tails I enter a different 60 dungeon to see if I can beat it. (beaten all of them so far.)

[Sandpark]

Palace of the Dead. The removal of sustain means summoner is no longer one of the viable solo classes.

I'd know - I wrote the book on it.

The tank pet couldn't even hold up against the level 60 quest mob. It's most decidedly an overnerf. They've screwed the pooch in multiple ways.

It was so pivotal that the class is no longer capable of doing content of which it previously was capable.

Your decision to never do anything but sit in the dungeon finder queue does not diminish its importance to other play styles.

While agree with, they kind of screwed the pooch for all jobs by stripping consistent self heals from a majority of jobs unless they are planning on making classes better at solo like originally planned.

I doubt many jobs could solo very high into PoTD now.

[Steel_Arrow]

I doubt many jobs could solo very high into PoTD now.

Yes, and POTD was released with a solo leaderboard because it was a significant aspect of the content, and responsible for much of its allure. One only has to look at it to see how important an aspect it was.

Summoner does not have any new leaderboard entries since the expansion dropped. RDM, however, is demolishing their old pre-nerf records by 200,000 points.

When a new expansion is released, generally the ability to do old content increases.

Instead, we all just paid to have our classes gimped to make way for the new order. RDM master race: exception to the meta.

We were supposed to get revamped "cross-class" abilities, but that isn't even what they are anymore. You're role locked and given 10 options, of which one or two are actually choices.