Throwing the tome: 4.2 Summoner Feedback

[Neela]

The „true“ purpose of Swiftcast is not only mobility but also flexibility and its a huge waste to hold it for res... i just use it on nearly every situation it’s CD is up... ruin 3, Tri-Bind or cheating the hardcast Dot, Egi swap... I wouldn’t count on people always have it ready for res... : /

[Karshan]

snip

Agreed with the fact that DWT is less of a hassle to "waste" than enochian (way less), but it is the very principle : you hit an eject button on a buff. You do it because it's a benefit, sure and what I'm tackling is that we ever be in a situation where losing a buff becomes beneficial. It should never be the case, cause it means bad design of the buff.

They just need to allow AF to be hit anytime and we'll be really fine with that . I mean DRGs continue gathering eyes while in LoTD. They lose them if they gather more than 3 before, but you just enter LotD and can continue mirage dive your way to next phase.

Actually even if they have to nerf things to maintain DPS levels the way they are, I would gladly see them remove blockouts : AF available in transe (even without the kit, just the skill itself), Transe and Rouse available in Bahamut. Sure it means more down time ruin spamming, but it allows more flexibility for the fight, and I would ask for nothing more. You can do the current "flow" on normal occasions, but a special boss jump doesn't put you in a situation where you need to haste or skip one of the quarters of the wheel : you'd just overlap them.

As for all your exemples (thank you for the time and effort btw), I see a lot of "swing and miss" by Square Enix, and an offset between expectations and reality. They're all exemple of poor thought designs, even porr balance choices (regarding SAM, we all know selfish don't work here cause 1 - Square is afraid to overbuff and 2 - let's talk about the elephant in the room, everyone talks about rDPS but really actually likes / wants a buff for fflogs and BLM and SAM won't provide you any).

But I don't see conflicting ones in the sense we hear it (maybe we fail at explaining it correctly).
DWT is a buff so your true purpose is to maintain it as long as poss...wait no not true, abort the first one. Because of an external mechanic ? No, because of your own kit. You do that to follow the n°1 rule of SMN : AF always on cooldown. Poor design.
Also : second absolute HS SMN rule : you never clip Dot... oops new SMN is kinda messy on that part too, at times. I guess the reset of TD kinda also feels weird to optimize.

PS : Although I like a lot of your examples of bad designs, the examples with tanks are not really the best. High level guides reject the concept of MT and OT, as well as the idea of a "no swap fight". There should be no such things, precisely to benefit the parts of your tool kits you miss depending on your role. It should be First tank (to go), Second tank.

[EllieShadeflare]

Agreed with the fact that DWT is less of a hassle to "waste" than enochian (way less), but it is the very principle : you hit an eject button on a buff. You do it because it's a benefit, sure and what I'm tackling is that we ever be in a situation where losing a buff becomes beneficial. It should never be the case, cause it means bad design of the buff.

Or it's designed to prey on a mindset as a trap, with the existence of the manual eject button making much more sense in Stormblood versus Heavensward. But Deathflare could be given a boost (which I detail below).

They just need to allow AF to be hit anytime and we'll be really fine with that . I mean DRGs continue gathering eyes while in LoTD. They lose them if they gather more than 3 before, but you just enter LotD and can continue mirage dive your way to next phase.

It'd probably require a new UI for Aetherflow to support both the existence of Aethertrail Attunement and Aetherflow, since the former uses the latter's UI to showcase having it.

Actually even if they have to nerf things to maintain DPS levels the way they are, I would gladly see them remove blockouts : AF available in transe (even without the kit, just the skill itself), Transe and Rouse available in Bahamut. Sure it means more down time ruin spamming, but it allows more flexibility for the fight, and I would ask for nothing more. You can do the current "flow" on normal occasions, but a special boss jump doesn't put you in a situation where you need to haste or skip one of the quarters of the wheel : you'd just overlap them.

See above, though being able to at least get the stacks even if you couldn't use them in DWT would be a good thing.

As for all your exemples (thank you for the time and effort btw), I see a lot of "swing and miss" by Square Enix, and an offset between expectations and reality. They're all exemple of poor thought designs, even porr balance choices (regarding SAM, we all know selfish don't work here cause 1 - Square is afraid to overbuff and 2 - let's talk about the elephant in the room, everyone talks about rDPS but really actually likes / wants a buff for fflogs and BLM and SAM won't provide you any).

I try to be concise with my arguments, so it helps to bring examples.

BLM is in a pretty good spot though, as an equivalently played BLM can massively benefit from other buffs to an extent that most jobs WISH they could do, and still maintain a pretty sizable rDPS. I could see potential for development if they go full ham in making Umbral Hearts useful for Single Target, particularly by giving a full discount on Fire spells in Astral Fire, but Samurai... may need a buff.

But I don't see conflicting ones in the sense we hear it (maybe we fail at explaining it correctly).

It would be a useful thing to know, so I would have a better understanding on what it is I'm discussing.

With that said, I pointed out mechanics that directly conflict with each other, such as the introduction of Greased Lightning in Monk's arsenal, designed to showcase that Monk's primary tool other than its uniquely designed combo design is its disgusting amount of speed, and the ability to provide what boils down to a death of a thousand punches (Kenshiro and the Joestars would be proud) which happen to be decent potency in their own right. Two expansions in, and Monk gains a skill that S L O W S T H E M D O W N , N E G A T I N G T H E P O I N T O F G R E A S E D L I G H T N I N G ' S U N I Q U E A D V A N T A G E , in a similarly contrasting and clunky way that Machinist and Bard were both leveled up to 50 as mobile, ranged classes that suddenly gained a cast bar at level 52.

There's also this example given by Shurrikhan (though as a side note to them, I hope the above point I made explains why I pointed to Riddle of Fire as a contrasting element)

Riddle of Earth and its requirement to actually take damage rather than merely be attacked, however (frequently having to drop Shake it Off to ensure the damage doesn't zero out)...
...Well, I guess even that's not contradictory so much as just unnecessarily stupid. Shelltron can still block and contribute toward a hit that would be fully absorbed by shields either way, so why should shields cost Monk its Greased Lightning when damage is overly mitigated? (Especially given that the effect is irremovably attached to a mitigation effect?!) Now that's contradiction.

DWT is a buff so your true purpose is to maintain it as long as poss...wait no not true, abort the first one. Because of an external mechanic ? No, because of your own kit. You do that to follow the n°1 rule of SMN : AF always on cooldown. Poor design.

Not... really... kinda? There's a manual abort button in the first place (which can't be said about any other buff) though, I suppose they could improve this by allowing manually aborted Death Flares a buff depending on how soon you launch it to compensate for the "lost" buff.

Also : second absolute HS SMN rule : you never clip Dot... oops new SMN is kinda messy on that part too, at times. I guess the reset of TD kinda also feels weird to optimize.

Generally, clipping is a rule for most DoTs, but for SMN, (formerly) BLM and BRD, they're exceptions. Bards need to keep using Iron Jaws to keep Caustic Bite and Storm Bite up as much as they can for Repertoire, Black Mages had to use Thundercloud ASAP or lose a pretty sizable burst, and SMN gets Tri-Disaster so often and it comes with a Ruin II/III/IV buff on top of it, so that's a fair reason that you'd clip Bio III and Miasma III.

PS : Although I like a lot of your examples of bad designs, the examples with tanks are not really the best. High level guides reject the concept of MT and OT, as well as the idea of a "no swap fight". There should be no such things, precisely to benefit the parts of your tool kits you miss depending on your role. It should be First tank (to go), Second tank.

I use the term "Main Tank" and "Off Tank" because those terms are the most common and point out the existence of fights that don't require heavy amounts of swapping (See: most EX fights) as they do occur albeit infrequently. In either case, it still doesn't make sense to entirely lack an MP tool on a job that relies on MP while in the phase that'd use the most MP (off tank/DPS stance Paladin would need all the MP they can get for Holy Spirit). And no, DRK can't be used as a fair comparison point because DRK still has its primary MP generation tools even without Grit (in fact, I'd even go so far as to say that Blood Weapon is more efficient an MP tool than Blood Price is).

[Sunako]

Would it be better if you could not use aetherflow outside combat like what they did for warrior infuriate so you would not need waste first dreadwyrm stance?

[Jukebox12]

Would it be better if you could not use aetherflow outside combat like what they did for warrior infuriate so you would not need waste first dreadwyrm stance?

Would be a huge nerd to smn

[Jukebox12]

How are you wasting the first dwt.

[EllieShadeflare]

How are you wasting the first dwt.

Technically not a "waste" in the context of playing SMN, but outside of that context, manually ejecting out of Dreadwyrm Trance before the full 15-16s is up could be considered a waste.

[Jukebox12]

Technically not a "waste" in the context of playing SMN, but outside of that context, manually ejecting out of Dreadwyrm Trance before the full 15-16s is up could be considered a waste.

How is that a waste you're literally doing a burst. Also you are doing this once unless the boss is going to jump away.

[Karshan]

You have a buff that you shorten on purpose for the sole reason to have access to AF again. You lose 10 seconds of a 10% buff. You don't see it because you condense it with the next one, and it would be a greater loss not to, but to me it is ill design that shortening a buff comes out as a greater result. Shortening a buff should in all cases be a loss.

[Jukebox12]

You have a buff that you shorten on purpose for the sole reason to have access to AF again. You lose 10 seconds of a 10% buff. You don't see it because you condense it with the next one, and it would be a greater loss not to, but to me it is ill design that shortening a buff comes out as a greater result. Shortening a buff should in all cases be a loss.

It's a one time thing like 99% of the time