Reasons why SMN is frustrating and difficult.

[RLofOBFL]

I know there are 10000 threads about SMN already but I wanted to consolidate all the issues into one thread. SMN and MCH are in bad spots right now, but MCH just needs potency buffs whereas SMN needs some skill changes to help make it less messy(imo).

SMN as of now is exceedingly clunky. Optimal DPS requires an insane amount of difficulty and focus. I played all classes well in 3.x and I think this new 4.x SMN is definitely the hardest to play successfully, especially with a controller. I spent a lot of time practicing on a dummy and its absolutely frustrating me. That is just my personal experience, but here are the reason why I don't think SMN works well. Though some are just me throwing in frustrations of the way the class plays that aren't picked up on easily.

~Ruin 2 > ogcd > ruin 2 > ogcd > ruin 3 > ruin 2 > ogcd, your main attacking basically, doesn't feel very smooth at all. It feels stiff.

~Did you know since they nerfed Ruin 3, you're supposed to basically skip your first DWT and you're supposed to just use Ruin 2, Tri disastor, Ruin 2, Shadowflare, Ruin 2, Deathflare?

~You HAVE to force Bahamut out ASAP or its a heavy dps loss, which also means if you don't start with a pre used Aetherflow, you're considerably weaker such as in dungeon boss fights.

~The opener requires you to summon Ifrit, use Radiant Shield then resummon Garuda right before the fight starts That's ridiculous.

~The OGCD number is asinine. Why are Deathflare and Dreadwyrm seperate buttons? Why are Summon Bahamut and Ahk Morn separate? SMN has the most button bloat besides PLD, except unlike PLD you need all of them for maximizing DPS. 18 if you include the 3 from the current pet. All absolutely required or you'll lose DPS(okay not Bane in most cases).

~The GCD number is equally unnecessary, Miasma 3 and Bio 3 are rarely hardcasted anymore at all, maybe once per minute at most. Why are Ruin 1 2 and 3 different buttons? Just make Ruin 1 into Ruin 3, the dps gain would be minor and honestly probably deserved. Tri Bind is just...unnecessary but I don't think it gets in the way since it's almost useless anyway.

~Why does Addle cause Bahamut to attack and is necessary to use for max dps?

~You need Aetherflow before summoning Bahamut or you'll miss 3 wyrm waves and lose dps, which you guessed it, is a dps loss

~The Bahamut phase is made unfun by the ridiculousness required in it, Ruin 2 > ogcd, but don't use the ogcd 1 second too early or 1 second too late before the next Ruin 2 or you'll miss a wyrmwave and lose dps. And don't click Ahk Morn in the last few seconds or it won't count bc pet delay.

~Why is there still pet delay.

~On top of having to be 100% on your toes to play well, you have to worry about your pet dying. There is almost no downtime to move it since you're almost constantly doing something complicated.

~Death makes you lose Aetherflow and Bahamut build up and your pet, basically if you die once you're a heavy liability to your team, you lose everything AND have to resummon your pet, leaving you almost MPless unless Lucid is off CD.

~Bahamut is huge. I personally love it but it's definitely a problem when you're not the one summoning it and it blocks out the view.

~Devotion is really difficult to control for no good reason.

~The rigidness of the rotation is like a much more complex 3.0 MCH. Despite all the classes becoming a fair bit easier and more fluid to supposedly let the devs add more mechanics to fights since you'd be able to pay more attention to the fight as said by Yoshi P, SMN has actually only become insanely more difficult and I imagine causes a lot of tunnel vision deaths.

~The skill floor and the skill ceiling are ridiculously high. Imo, if you play very casually, this class is not for you. The dps difference between good and bad is very large. You almost need a guide or at least a few hours wacking a dummy to get somewhat of a feel for the class.

Feel free to mention anything I may have forgotten, dispute/answer my points, call me a baka or recommend solutions to these issues.

[pacifist0rz]

Amen.

Like you said there are a bunch of other SMN posts, but your post here covers everything in a very detailed yet concise format.


I never knew about rezing your pet with weakness. Just another punishment for dying on top of everything else.

Also, you point about the dps difference between good and bad needs to really needs to be brought to light and discussed more. People argue about which class is "hardest" to play, but the numbers don't lie. Look at fflogs and compare the 50% on deltascape normal (bad players) with the 75% on deltascape savage (good players). Good SMNs do 38% more damage than bad ones! Compared that to an average of only 27% dps increase between good players and bad players for all other DPS classes.

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

I do agree that summoner is much more difficult to play well than in heavensward. Kinda the opposite of what they said they were trying to achieve with class changes in stormblood.

Definitely need to roll back some things and make major changes imo.

Couple things off the top of my head:
1. Allow us to select our target for devotion buff and make it an ogcd instead of a pet ability.
2. Allow aetherflow stacks to overlap with dreadwyrm stacks again.
3. Make wyrmwave into an auto attack for bahamut.
4. Allow rouse to be useable on bahamut.
5. Buff bane potency. No one is using it anymore because its usually a dps loss compared to painflare.

[Dahlinea]

At this point it would be wise to modify the class so the we stay in DWT all the time but this would be a heavy change on SMN mechs and probably out of question till 5.0.

For Bahamut's size problem one such solution would be to remove Wyrmwave from it and incorporating the potency modifier of the skill into the SMN own skills for the allotted time you have to summon Bahamut and make Bahamut appear only when you use its signature skill (Ahk Morn) and disappear after (we would technically still have 2 Ahk Morns but Bahamut would come and go as we command the skill). This is reasonable since originally a summon in FF games would only appear to use it's signature attack and only changed recently with FFX and FFXII (don't know about FFXI since I never played it).

[KarstenS]

Wall of Text

One more thing that really annoys me:

While we have Bahamut on our side, we are only using GCDs and OGCDs to attack. No hard casts. Sounds like much mobility, but it isn't. As long Bahamut is moving it will do NO DAMAGE that is normally triggered by GCDs and oGCDs.

[Remedi]

Tbh on my tests while I move with Bahamut following me and cast ruin2 he stops to do dmg and then resume to follow me

[Caduagm]

You forgot to say that SMN got NOTHING this expansion.
Ruin IV=Ruin III before the nerf.
Akh Morn=Bigger Deathflare.
Bahamut=Bigger pet.
Devotion=Poop.

[Leukka]

DoTs no longer have any weight to them. In the past, Bio + Bio2 + Miasma made up a significant portion of our damage but nowadays they feel pitiful and are mostly just tools to enable Fester to hit it's full potency. By removing Bio2 it also had the significant impact to our Bane where it's now considered optimal to miasma+bio+Painflare down the enemy target list rather than setting up superpowered Raging Strikes + Contagion backed Banes.

I understand that a significant portion of the playerbase didn't like the DoT aspect of the class and wanted something more akin to a traditional summoner and I can relate to that despite preferring my DoT class. However, what we have now that's something in between a Ruinmancer and DoT class that feels pretty awful. Either get rid of them or significantly buff them to their former glory because what we have now feels like an old relic of a time long past.

[Fyce]

DoTs no longer have any weight to them. [...]

Let's be honest, it's not because the DoTs are not as powerful as they were that SMN completly changed. DoTs are still a very big thing to focus on, and saying that they're just a Fester enabler is ridiculous.
Besides, SMN has been a Ruin/DoT mage since ARR. The only thing different is that you had to use your GCDs to cast DoTs more frequently. Would you be happy if the two DoTs were 15 seconds duration? Personally, it'd feel more like a chore than a rewarding gameplay.

[KarstenS]

Tbh on my tests while I move with Bahamut following me and cast ruin2 he stops to do dmg and then resume to follow me

Hm. Interesting. I'm pretty shure I did read in Snows guide that he wont. So I did play like this.