Prelim 5.0 SMN Feedback & how the rework is going against improved downtime design

[Osmond]

People said similarly to the changes before 4.0 was released. SMN was the least played job globally until 4.1.

History is not on your side with that kind of thinking, Danielle. That's why we're being more proactive this time. People have genuinely reached out to me pleading for there to not be a repeat of the Stormblood launch for Summoner. That is why we are putting efforts into solving and understanding things now, staging our guides and resources early while making them more accessible, and providing the feedback we can.

Oh, I know what I've said and people figured it out the rotation in stormblood which become 1 of the top DPS in the game. There won't be a repeat of SMN like it did w/ Stormblood. I'm looking forward to the changes and it's new rotation going forward. The only gripe I can say like with aetherpact being random single target back at stormblood launch. They can make titan's earthen armor 10% HP dmg absorption shield to you and party members. SMNs wasn't much in bad spots throughout the game life cycle..unless involves many CC reductions or removals of certain abilities that made them too OP for the other caster jobs which became justified looking at that.

[Osmond]

Don't worry, it's just the smn developer playing 4D chess again. Make the job seem so horrible that it obviously needs massive buffs and changes, so his actual OP changes for the job that he kept on the side get the green light, right as savage comes out. And stays the most relevant caster throughout the rest of expansion. Watch it happen... again...

Oh it will. It became super good in ARR so they had to tone it down. Still good in HW so they tone it down some more. Unstoppable in stormblood cause it too many good raid utilities. So they'll be good there in shadowbringers now that ruin spells are buffed while dots are up. Ruination can be baned so CC galore. Stored Ruin 4s are delicious. AoE regen for the party while phoenix is up which is a smile to healers...may not be much, but it benefits.

[Karshan]

People said similarly to the changes before 4.0 was released. SMN was the least played job globally until 4.1.

History is not on your side with that kind of thinking, Danielle. That's why we're being more proactive this time. People have genuinely reached out to me pleading for there to not be a repeat of the Stormblood launch for Summoner. That is why we are putting efforts into solving and understanding things now, staging our guides and resources early while making them more accessible, and providing the feedback we can.

I SOOOOO remember that. "you'll see, they can tweak it before 4.0 hits". But the tweaks didn't come and the media tour tooltips were quite final, and we had to wait 4 months and painful savage progression before seeing some light. Granted that we got too much light after that with overbuff. I think the nerf on DOTs is precisely that : a quick fix reserve. If SMN lacks a bit comes 5.0 (doubt it with ruin changes but hey), put the dots back to 50 a tick for 5.05 to apease angry mob and then make a true change in 5.1

I was first exited about the changes cause didn't like the gates (don't like how sometimes transe can get in the way of the golden rule : AF. ON. CD.);
I was extatic with the first glimpse of the tooltips, but soon realized the inconvenience : the shared timer of the transes.

So I did get the "use AF whenever I want" thing I wished for, but actually it's because the old Golden rule just shifted on Trance...

It still will feel less clunky cause AF is parallel and not sequential, but yeah downtime might be a problem. On DWT it's ok as long as the boss comes back in time for Deathflare, but if it happens on FBT, most likely at least one PhoeniMorn will be missed.

Edit : also, nice in depth analysis, thank you for that. The prepull preparations part is indeed quite troublesome...

[Len]

I still remember on Stormblood launch when Aetherpact/Devotion affected a single, randomly chosen party member.

[Karshan]

new guy here. I might not understand it well.

But it seems all your points here are basically the same "long prepull actions available; the solution: make it not possible". But I don't see how would "the optional choice" cause SMN being least job played. Even if they did all your proposals.. the result would be exactly same as if you just don't use those annoying prepull options, wouldn't it?

Allow me to give my insight on why it might be a problem.

If those preparations are possible, to maximize DPS they'll be expected to be done.
Maybe it's the SMN who wants it, because he has his log in mind, and he'll sound ridiculous to the rest of the party who might not care.
Or it's the team that has objectives (DPS checks, kill times...), they'll realize they can take another job that does the trick just well without needing 2 minutes of prep between each wipe...

Either way, SMN will quite quickly become ostracized for it. And if you think it wouldn't be a thing, Yoshida did make a comment on aetherflow so it does mean such peer pressure DOES exist.

[Dyvid]

So how big of an impact will not having ruination up be? Specifically I'm look at Tri-D, Trance, and pre vs post pull. Ideally you should have this up the entire time except during FBT, since I don't believe it'll effect FoF and BoP.

[Nemekh]

new guy here. I might not understand it well.

But it seems all your points here are basically the same "long prepull actions available; the solution: make it not possible". But I don't see how would "the optional choice" cause SMN being least job played. Even if they did all your proposals.. the result would be exactly same as if you just don't use those annoying prepull options, wouldn't it?

Rotational clunk and perceived job complexity, in tandem with the whole problem scenario with Eirene with his bible of a doc pushed many people away from ever wanting to play SMN in 4.0. SMN was also perceived bad due to observed dps, but that's a whole other problem set not related to rotation concerns.

In 5.0 there is again rotational clunk made worse with Trance rigidity. The flow will not make immediate sense to the general player vs other jobs because it's not as intuitive, although we are doing our best to make sure our guide materials will not repeat what Eirene caused. Finally, throw in pre-pull annoyances and you will have a job that people will not enjoy having in their party and by extension, a job people will play less because of that.

Some of us have already been through this song and dance before, several times.

[Nemekh]

I'd also like to emphasise, similarly to 4.0's release state, SMN's dps is not looking terrible it's looking decent especially with AoE in mind. It's the execution and job feel that's of concern here and how it's going to impact party dynamics.

[Nemekh]

I still remember on Stormblood launch when Aetherpact/Devotion affected a single, randomly chosen party member.

I always found it funny that no one had tested/used this who went to the Stormblood media tour, not in any of the video materials. It ended up targeting the nearest player to the egi and it could never be you as the Summoner causing people to scramble to be nearer to it. In the end we just treated it as "Increase nearest Healer's DPS by 5%" because it was so often the healers standing right on top of the egi.

[Vulcwen]

So how big of an impact will not having ruination up be? Specifically I'm look at Tri-D, Trance, and pre vs post pull. Ideally you should have this up the entire time except during FBT, since I don't believe it'll effect FoF and BoP.

The resets make it so you can't really make your dots align so you have a hardcast before FBT, at least without just wasting a reset entirely (which costs you more than what 20s of ruination would gain you).
Tri-disaster has to be either right before or right after going into a trance, you can off-sync it for a bit (in the opener or after downtime), but eventually (at most 2 minutes later) it'll be optimal to clip the dot to align it back with trances, so you're not forced into additional hardcasts.

It still will feel less clunky cause AF is parallel and not sequential, but yeah downtime might be a problem. On DWT it's ok as long as the boss comes back in time for Deathflare, but if it happens on FBT, most likely at least one PhoeniMorn will be missed.

They removed the mutual exclusivity between spending AF stacks and the trances themselves. This makes it similar to the HW situation, where you could just use AF stacks in DWT, and even go in DWT after AF was back up, because aethertrail stacks and aetherflow stacks weren't mutually exclusive like they are in SB. Instead of separating aethertrail from aetherflow like it was in HW, they just removed the aethertrail requirement completely to turn it into a plain cd.
We still have to use the aetherflow-granting skill (Energy Drain now) on cd. If a boss jumps when you still have stacks, it's the same situation, you first have to spend the stacks when it comes back before you (can) use energy drain again.
We also need to keep trances on cooldown, and trances deal with the exact same issue, you have to spend bahamut before you can enter a trance again (they removed the possibility to enter DWT with bahamut ready btw). Meanwhile, the 60s spacing between tri-disaster resets create a very clunky situation with DoT timings.
I don't think separating trances from AF was a solution at all, to me it feels like AF was just a scapegoat for the actual issue.