Throwing the tome: 4.2 Summoner Feedback

[Shurrikhan]

Even though you're still one of the most reliably high-parsing jobs in the game atop providing indirect DPS and being capable of combat-rezzes, generally suffer the least from downtime, and have mobility second only to the ranged jobs?

Some of your systems may be clunky, and the gameplay won't be universally appealing, but you're far from weak...

To be clear, this was not aimed at the OP, but rather two posts, since edited, to the effect that the recent nerfs were overkill, as if from a numbers standpoint. I do agree that SMN feels clunky, and I too would generally rather have a just-faintly UP job that it fun to play than one that is faintly OP but feels clunky, lacks cohesion, and is less than fun. However, as this is highly subjective, I'd rather not suggest significant changes to that effect, but would rather focus simply on functionality-improving or QoL changes. However, Ellie has already covered all I can rightly suggest, back on page 1.

[Neela]

but you're far from weak...

main problem in most of the design/mechanic topics is that it always tend to end in weak/strong/fflogs comparison even when ops intention is all about the gameplay-flow and not about numbers... smn, mnks, mch etc... might appear in good spots for certain tasks - but they are all "broken" in gameplay if you read all the cls discussions lately. I know its hard to take a serious hand on cls mechanics without thinking about balancing - true but I don't think this should get another "smn vs xyz cls" thread... : /

[Adventica6]

Some of your systems may be clunky, and the gameplay won't be universally appealing, but you're far from weak...

I'd rather be a bit weaker and have a fun / non-clunky job instead...

[Karshan]

Even though you're still one of the most reliably high-parsing jobs in the game atop providing indirect DPS and being capable of combat-rezzes, generally suffer the least from downtime, and have mobility second only to the ranged jobs?

Some of your systems may be clunky, and the gameplay won't be universally appealing, but you're far from weak...

He never claimed so, on the very contrary he said it was absolutely not a number discussion, it's a gameplay mechanics one.
A lot of people also misunderstood his statement about dots. He knows they're 20% of our damage, when he says they don't do anything he means that except fester and bane (lol) nothing interacts with it.
Which is not entirely true (ruination) but maybe now people understand more.

All he says about pets is quite right as well.

That was my fear when they buffed SMN : that people say "it's buffed, stop complaining" when really it is not the concern for some of us ; the grievance is that it doesn't feel instinctive or nice to play anymore, with all those containments between rouse, AF, DWT, Baha. It is clunky, and I maintain that statement "emotion from the expansion free" after 6 months of trying it out on various fights.

The fact players work around the clunkiness to make great parses doesn't say "it's not clunky" it only says "we do well despite that".

[Shurrikhan]

He never claimed so, on the very contrary he said it was absolutely not a number discussion, it's a gameplay mechanics one.
A lot of people also misunderstood his statement about dots. He knows they're 20% of our damage, when he says they don't do anything he means that except fester and bane (lol) nothing interacts with it.
Which is not entirely true (ruination) but maybe now people understand more.

All he says about pets is quite right as well.

That was my fear when they buffed SMN : that people say "it's buffed, stop complaining" when really it is not the concern for some of us ; the grievance is that it doesn't feel instinctive or nice to play anymore, with all those containments between rouse, AF, DWT, Baha. It is clunky, and I maintain that statement "emotion from the expansion free" after 6 months of trying it out on various fights.

The fact players work around the clunkiness to make great parses doesn't say "it's not clunky" it only says "we do well despite that".

Fair enough. When I posted, some of the since-edited posts went so far as calling it broken or the most recent set of nerfs unnecessary and unfair.

I'll agree completely that current Summoner seems, even on paper, to be clunkier and far less cohesive than it ought to be. Sadly, the sheer number of things that have seemed wrong with it on paper haven't been enough to encourage me to level it in SB; it will likely be my very last job (pair) to 70, or before only AST (and that reluctance, too, stems merely from a mechanical issue; my Draw always instantly self-spends, even if the key is only clicked/queued once, unless I can perfectly clip my oGCD queue with another skill).

:: I mean, I play Monk. We perform well, but short of very short GCDs, our rotations are a conflicting, wasteful mess, and no matter our gear a good portion of our toolkit remains a conceptual garble.

I felt the same way both on the SMN and now the BLM buffs, though at least the latter touched on a couple mildly useful QoL points, whereas only the effective penalty of death changes were especially reassuring for Summoner.

To better hold to the topic this time, I can only really say from my limited experience mostly just what Ellie has already said before. At best, I can suggest merely that cast times be removed from pets, their spell animation locks be reduced, their abilities be treated as pet oGCDs, and their base movement speeds increased. I'd also suggest that, across the board, auto-attacks should be initiated by spell casts and that any active auto-attack cycle ought to trigger similarly hostile behavior by your pets against the given target (at least in the absence of a current pet target as set by your last instance of damage dealt to an enemy). This would allow Bahamut to attack immediately, even without being ordered to, as you'd already be in an aggressive state towards your target when Bahamut spawns.

I'd also suggest, as a minor QoL, that players should enter and reenter (from death) instances at full stacks of any time-generated resource that does not require combat, such as Aetherflow, Ammunition, and Chakra. I realize this is scarcely an issue, as one can wait the mere 30-45 seconds, but it's still only fair.

I'd personally also perfer that DWT merely apply an attack speed buff, rather than a damage buff, making its DoT reapplication timings more flexible, but, more importantly, allowing from a balance perspective Fester, Painflare, and Energy Drain to again be used from inside DWT, opening the way for Aetherflow to be used within as well, assuming sufficient balance changes. I'd assume this would not be without contention, though, as many will have gotten use to the current consequent timings of DWT and SB burst phases, and may dislike a more frequent but less powerful Bahamut, or one that takes 4 Trances to summon instead, etc.

[TraeSnow]

I'd personally also perfer that DWT merely apply an attack speed buff, rather than a damage buff, making its DoT reapplication timings more flexible, but, more importantly, allowing from a balance perspective Fester, Painflare, and Energy Drain to again be used from inside DWT, opening the way for Aetherflow to be used within as well, assuming sufficient balance changes. I'd assume this would not be without contention, though, as many will have gotten use to the current consequent timings of DWT and SB burst phases, and may dislike a more frequent but less powerful Bahamut, or one that takes 4 Trances to summon instead, etc.

The issue with having DWT apply attack speed buff over damage is that it's actually a pretty big damage loss altogether.

Mainly because:
1. A SMN never hard casts DoTs in DWT.
2. Attack speed =/= Spell Speed - So your DoTs would get no bonus damage from DWT.
3. Currently, the damage buff applies to Ruin 3, Deathflare, Shadowflare and DoTs (Via Tri-D)
4. If they allowed us to use Aetherstacks in DWT again then we'd lose even more DPS because Abilities are not affected by Attack Speed but they are by damage increase - so you'd lose 3 Festers with the damage buff.

Attack Speed/Spell Speed will never be SMN's strong point since SMN is mostly about weaving in oGCDs with their GCDs. It's part of what makes them flexible (And annoyed at how much spellspeed SE puts in gear >_>)

[Shurrikhan]

The issue with having DWT apply attack speed buff over damage is that it's actually a pretty big damage loss altogether.

I'm fully aware. And I'm not saying that the buffs wouldn't then be advisable in other ways. If all this is to be about the rotation and its intuitiveness and flexibility thereof, however, that is the second concern. The gameplay itself should be considered first. That is what I'm trying to do here.

4. If they allowed us to use Aetherstacks in DWT again then we'd lose even more DPS because Abilities are not affected by Attack Speed but they are by damage increase - so you'd lose 3 Festers with the damage buff.

Why would you compare the disadvantages of one possibility to something that similarly isn't in game, but simply takes the best of both worlds? Spell speed is inferior because then DWT wouldn't buff your Festers... even though at present, you can't even use Festers in DWT... probably because they'd always then be saved for DWT, making bursts even more crowded and the lulls even more barren?

2. Attack speed =/= Spell Speed - So your DoTs would get no bonus damage from DWT.

I'm fully aware. But, that's precisely the point: to make no difference to effects wholly available outside of DWT when cast within DWT. Thus flexibility is increased, but not damage potential. The debuff would, in a sense, be to Tri-Disaster alone, since it the buff could do nothing for it even while extending the number of casts possible within its window (thus, to certain plateaus, increasing Ruin III damage and, through the increased rate of pet casts in tandem, to Ruin IV rate and therefore Enkindle).

3. Currently, the damage buff applies to Ruin 3, Deathflare, Shadowflare and DoTs (Via Tri-D)

Yes, which is why simply reverting a small part of the most recent nerfs would be more than sufficient to offer them the same firepower. Whensoever a new plateau would be reached, as well, Ruin III would already be receiving the same benefit, so in many a case it's actually only oGCD-appliable damage that would require this benefit.

Attack Speed/Spell Speed will never be SMN's strong point since SMN is mostly about weaving in oGCDs with their GCDs. It's part of what makes them flexible (And annoyed at how much spellspeed SE puts in gear >_>)

This is less an issue with SMN specifically than with Skill and Spell speed in general. It forces a revaluation of oGCD vs. GCD damage. For SkS or SpS to be viable, they need to have greater eventual value than Det, Crit, or DHit to GCD skills and abilities afforded proportionate to those GCD skills (such as Kenki, Deep Meditation Chakra, or the HW version of Geirskogul), because they can only contribute to a portion of your overall damage. If an ability is afforded by time alone -- a non-accelerateable cooldown -- then SkS and SpS have no effect on it, much like Critical Strike having zero effect on auto-attacks back in A Realm Reborn, thus causing Monks and --to a lesser extent-- Dragoons to seek out Determination instead. This simply should not be the case. There is no reason for a stat to be inherently unbalanceable across classes just because of their damage sources. Spell Speed should have an effect on any and all CD skills, identically to Determination, where attack speed itself cannot be of any value. And given the gradual additions made to SkS and SpS with each expansion thus far, it's not unthinkable that the devs may finally allow for this in order to make the stats more easily balanced, rather than having the same stat that affects 100% of BLM or 90% of SAM damage affect less than, say, 80% of SMN or Monk damage.

[Flana]

Contagion in HW is absolutely not the same as Contagion in SB. They are two different abilities that happen to share a name, just like Delirium for DRK.

In Heavensward: Contagion was a pet ability that extended the duration of your diseases by 15 seconds.

This is what I'm talking about when I say the kit doesn't interact with its themes anymore. The old ability had a noticeable and unique interaction with a separate core mechanic of the class (Pets + DoTs). It also had a grace period of ~15 seconds to work, since Contagion only needed to be cast at some point before your dots fell off. This went a long way to mitigate the pet being as stupid as a sack of bricks.

In Stormblood: Contagion just increases magic damage taken by 10%.

It's been hacked down to just a generic damage up for everything you do, except your auto-attacks. It doesn't have any unique interaction with any other specific part of your kit anymore. You just do it. It is undeniably stronger as a result, but I find that to still be incredibly bland and uninteresting.

This also introduces an annoying as hell failure chance. With the old contagion you had a minimum of ~13 seconds, if you were trying to catch Miasma II. Now the pet can still delay it for basically no reason and it has awful ramifications. You can even just lose the debuff and have it go on cooldown anyways because summoning demi-bahamut kills your current pet.

Which, again, brings me to the question of: why the hell does everything in this job try and conflict with something else?

Also-

"Why would you waste the first Trance?"

Because it is better dps wasted. You will always lose damage by not getting Aetherflow going.You delay all of your future trances and bahamuts. This is why the jobs design is backwards and nonsensical.

[EllieShadeflare]

Contagion in HW is absolutely not the same as Contagion in SB.

Did I ever say different? What did I say in my post, so you don't misrepresent what I said?

Meanwhile, we didn't "lose" Contagion. It became a much more versatile ability by providing a flat DPS buff that interacts not only with your own spells (DoTs included) but also your healers' and other caster party members' spells. Yes, at the moment, most parties favor Ifrit at the moment for Radiant Shield, but there's a reason they reduced the cast time of Garuda and Ifrit to GCD.

Contagion is still part of our kit, it's a more useful and applicable Magic Vulnerability Debuff that actually helps the party as much as they help our own damage. You can even quickswitch between Ifrit and Garuda to ensure full coverage of buffs, Radiant Shield for physical vulnerability and Contagion for magic vulnerability.

I address that Contagion has been reworked, and I address that it has been reworked into something more applicable to itself and to others. SMN has always been in a weird spot where it WANTED to be Black Mage by being as selfish as possible, only doing BLM's job with pets and DoTs.

This is what I'm talking about when I say the kit doesn't interact with its themes anymore. The old ability had a noticeable and unique interaction with a separate core mechanic of the class (Pets + DoTs). It also had a grace period of ~15 seconds to work, since Contagion only needed to be cast at some point before your dots fell off. This went a long way to mitigate the pet being as stupid as a sack of bricks.

And people had issues with the overemphasis on DoTs and on the clunky as hell pet. A question becomes "why work with clunky mechanics just for the theme of a job?"

It's been hacked down to just a generic damage up for everything you do, except your auto-attacks. It doesn't have any unique interaction with any other specific part of your kit anymore. You just do it. It is undeniably stronger as a result, but I find that to still be incredibly bland and uninteresting.

It seems to sound so, but you now actually interact with your party in a way that few other jobs can. If you can pull it off, using both Ifrit and Garuda in an opener can allow for full coverage of vulnerabilities, allowing for a magic buff that benefits you and your healers from Contagion, and a physical vulnerability that is coincided with a mini-Auto Attack for your tanks.

Also, under your argument, all Contagion did was extend DoTs. That's... definitely a boring interaction between pets and your DoTs. Like... that's the bargain bin of interaction. Sad thing is, that's not the only real way to interact with DoTs either, with Bard interacting by having their mechanics being pulled from their DoTs and BLM being able to proc not only an extension of their DoT, but also turn that extension into a burst spell!

This also introduces an annoying as hell failure chance. With the old contagion you had a minimum of ~13 seconds, if you were trying to catch Miasma II. Now the pet can still delay it for basically no reason and it has awful ramifications. You can even just lose the debuff and have it go on cooldown anyways because summoning demi-bahamut kills your current pet.

Blame the pet, and it always did that before. Also, citations needed on losing the debuff by summoning Bahamut.

Which, again, brings me to the question of: why the hell does everything in this job try and conflict with something else?

Because every job has something like that. See: Black Mage's rotation that is constantly at risk of clipping itself, Red Mage's support skills that have NOTHING to do with DPS (ESPECIALLY its abuse of Verraise), White Mage being the pure healer, but having weaker heals than ASTROLOGIAN, Scholar being more of a DPS than an actual healer, Machinist's RNG combo, and probably more examples that I can't think of but other players of other jobs can explain far better than I would be able to. This clunkiness isn't unique to SMN, every job has SOME degree of clunkiness if you don't understand it or get worked into it. Except MAYBE Red Mage, but Red Mage's endgame clunkiness comes from what people want out of its players (the rez slave).

"Why would you waste the first Trance?"

Because it is better dps wasted. You will always lose damage by not getting Aetherflow going.You delay all of your future trances and bahamuts. This is why the jobs design is backwards and nonsensical.

That goes against every opener I've ever seen, which all stem from this particular document which is still considered the most trustworthy SMN guide in the community. It also goes against a Balance-approved guide from before Imouto's guide, which by the by, SMN's rotation hasn't fully changed between 4.0 and 4.1 beyond "Ruin III all the things!" If you're burning DWT before you at least get off Shadowflare or at least Tri-Disaster, you are doing something wrong.

At best? You don't use the full 15s of Dreadwyrm Trance, but you at least apply Tri-Disaster (for the 110 potency DoTs) and Shadowflare (for the additional 55 potency), cast maybe a Ruin III or two, and then Deathflare. And that's only assuming you're facing off against a boss that heavily favors faster kills (See: Shinryu EX and Susano-EX). If you're not doing AT LEAST THOSE TWO THINGS (Or at the very least, Tri Disaster on the second DWT, since Shadow Flare would probably be on cooldown), you effectively waste a buff and waste DPS in general.