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

[Dyvid]

Snip

So looking at the problem, it seems the two biggest issue with the flow is timers and that Trances are linked together. If you removed DWT and FBT from a shared timer it would ease up the downtime considerable as well as help with lining up the DoTs. Now if you extend DWT to 20s along with unlinking DWT and FBT, that would gives you a 1 minute rotation that is fully covered. The draw back would be having to redo skills and abilities to revolve around that 1 minute rotation. For example: as of right now you would want to use Garuda's Slipstream every 30s along with your DoTs since it would be higher Potency than Ifrits Flaming Crush in the long run. But with that new rotation, the 30s mark would be half way through Demi Bahamut.

But now if we unlink DWT and FBT it could create a rotation where you do the following: DWT > Demi-B > DWT > Demi-P. Or would separating Demi-P from FBT be a better solution: DWT > DB > FBT > DP? In this manner, during the Trance phase you would hard cast your DoTs, use Egi Assaults to build up Ruin IV procs then use TriD and Ruin IV during DB and DP phases (Assuming you would lose FBT fire spells).

[Vulcwen]

So looking at the problem, it seems the two biggest issue with the flow is timers and that Trances are linked together. If you removed DWT and FBT from a shared timer it would ease up the downtime considerable as well as help with lining up the DoTs. Now if you extend DWT to 20s along with unlinking DWT and FBT, that would gives you a 1 minute rotation that is fully covered. The draw back would be having to redo skills and abilities to revolve around that 1 minute rotation. For example: as of right now you would want to use Garuda's Slipstream every 30s along with your DoTs since it would be higher Potency than Ifrits Flaming Crush in the long run. But with that new rotation, the 30s mark would be half way through Demi Bahamut.

But now if we unlink DWT and FBT it could create a rotation where you do the following: DWT > Demi-B > DWT > Demi-P. Or would separating Demi-P from FBT be a better solution: DWT > DB > FBT > DP? In this manner, during the Trance phase you would hard cast your DoTs, use Egi Assaults to build up Ruin IV procs then use TriD and Ruin IV during DB and DP phases (Assuming you would lose FBT fire spells).

I don't think the 1m cycle would actually work, when considering the R4 and Egi-assault mechanic. The issue with dot rigidity while still having a part of the rotation that you're not in either a trance and demi-summon can be solved by removing the tri-disaster reset from FBT, and reducing it's cooldown to 30s, while keeping DWT at a shared 60s, resulting in a 90s rotation that includes 1 reset tri-disaster, 1 regular tri-disaster and 1 hardcast per cycle. This doesn't fix the other issues with trances though.
The more elegant solution is to give DWT and FBT charges (2 max charges). That way the flexibility that trances had within the aetherflow system is retained, and the pressure element is removed (but you still have that pressure element on energy drain, and R4 optimization to care about), resulting in a more flexible and intuitive base rotation.

Additionally, I would personally slightly lower the damage of the fester effect on ruin (to 40 potency per dot), and give a bit more potency on FBT gcds (+50 potency) and deathflare, which together with charges on DWT/FBT should be about a neutral change in DPS, but puts a bit more oomph in the burst windows. Alternatively, bring back the 10% magic buff on trances (only if they actually give charges to DWT/FBT), and increase the flat falloff of brand of purgatory to 65% so it'll beat outburst + deathflare in AoE up to 7 targets, so it's not actually a nerf to get FBT at lvl 72.

As a final note I want to point out that Garuda's slipstream dot is a ground aoe, and thus will disappear once you switch pets or go in bahamut/phoenix. Currently it looks like you'd only want to use garuda for AoE situations.

[Nemekh]

From E3, the most recent public build has DWT and Egi Assaults as unable to be used outside of combat.





That addresses part of the problems, so with these in mind, I am grateful. Yes, it removes some potential nuances we could have played with, but I for one was not looking forward to the nightmare timeline of prepull nonsense.

We'll still be going over the rest of the rotation and how it ends up for further feedback with regards to other concerns.

[Shirokami]

What troubles me the most is SMN's solo capacity. With tanking egi being gone as it is, how are SMNs to deal with more challenging solo content? I believe most of you recall, for example, that post-SB quest in the steppe, where player takes control of Y'shtola. Before that happens though, one must survive in the ring against an au ra.... Now, with Physick scalling with int and with no longer having a pet tank, with a skill that grants us only 20% HP shield on 30 sec cd... it does sound like our survival will go down by quiet a bit. And I don't think SMNs could even manage to complete that quest for example in this new state.

[Gallus]

Dragoons, monks, bards, machinists, blms, samurais and ninjas have no healing or a tanking pet either.

Find me a single person playing those jobs that is concerned about soloing the occasional main quests.

[TraeSnow]

What troubles me the most is SMN's solo capacity. With tanking egi being gone as it is, how are SMNs to deal with more challenging solo content? I believe most of you recall, for example, that post-SB quest in the steppe, where player takes control of Y'shtola. Before that happens though, one must survive in the ring against an au ra.... Now, with Physick scalling with int and with no longer having a pet tank, with a skill that grants us only 20% HP shield on 30 sec cd... it does sound like our survival will go down by quiet a bit. And I don't think SMNs could even manage to complete that quest for example in this new state.

I've been SMN main since launch and I have no issue at all with SMN's solo capacity. Titan Egi has been falling off ever since HW. In 2.0, he was amazing for soloing. I remember doing an entire AK run with 4 SMN using Titan (purely for fun). However that time is gone. Titan egi has been in a decline the further we got away from 2.0. I'm not sure what his scaling is, but SB just solidified how useless he is. I remember at the start of SB, my Titan egi would always die at around 20% of the mobs HP left, leaving me to tank the remaining without a pet. You actually take less damage and kill faster while using a damage pet.

[Elenoe]

What troubles me the most is SMN's solo capacity.

never used Titan myself. In world (fates, hunts and such) you have Kweh! and in solo instances you either don't get hit or there is some NPC that heals you time to time.

[ShadowNyx3]

It sucks they felt the need to overhaul this lovely job and turn it into this monstrosity when it was fine.

I was excited to see the changes to the egi actions and having them be instant cast summons and I could have accepted an overhaul if they involved an egi rotation as part of the overall rotation (finally making the summoner use their summons which more casual players have been crying for forever) but they just made the egis completely cut and dry for single target and aoe and whatever Titan is still there for, instead focusing on changing the rotation anchor from aetherflow to trance. I don’t get it.

The Ruin IV stacks would have been enough to add a new edge to SMN play coupled with the severe potency drop to Ruin II and I think that will be an entertaining thing to do with this new design but without some leniency on the trance rigidity, there’s really nothing new here that can salvage what SMN has become.

[Karshan]

I don't think the 1m cycle would actually work, when considering the R4 and Egi-assault mechanic. The issue with dot rigidity while still having a part of the rotation that you're not in either a trance and demi-summon can be solved by removing the tri-disaster reset from FBT, and reducing it's cooldown to 30s, while keeping DWT at a shared 60s, resulting in a 90s rotation that includes 1 reset tri-disaster, 1 regular tri-disaster and 1 hardcast per cycle. This doesn't fix the other issues with trances though.
The more elegant solution is to give DWT and FBT charges (2 max charges). That way the flexibility that trances had within the aetherflow system is retained, and the pressure element is removed (but you still have that pressure element on energy drain, and R4 optimization to care about), resulting in a more flexible and intuitive base rotation.

Additionally, I would personally slightly lower the damage of the fester effect on ruin (to 40 potency per dot), and give a bit more potency on FBT gcds (+50 potency) and deathflare, which together with charges on DWT/FBT should be about a neutral change in DPS, but puts a bit more oomph in the burst windows. Alternatively, bring back the 10% magic buff on trances (only if they actually give charges to DWT/FBT), and increase the flat falloff of brand of purgatory to 65% so it'll beat outburst + deathflare in AoE up to 7 targets, so it's not actually a nerf to get FBT at lvl 72.

As a final note I want to point out that Garuda's slipstream dot is a ground aoe, and thus will disappear once you switch pets or go in bahamut/phoenix. Currently it looks like you'd only want to use garuda for AoE situations.

The drawback with charge-ups is the fact that they can be utilized back to back. So this might create some weird stacking strategy rotations (more complex than HW mini stacking was). But I do agree that the real problem with SB AF or ShB Trances is the rigid timer and charge-ups nullify that "oh god it's soon off cooldown and I'm not ready" situation.

Maybe an even more elegant solution, would be to go back to AF and aethertrails required for trances (and putting back the cooldown from current trance not that shared stuff), but putting the charge on AF. That way you don't put clunk in Tri-D recast timer.

I don't know the best course but I think we can agree that the root problem is the "gates" and if the fight isn't well aligned with it we're done for. God I miss HW SMN, there was a countdown on aethertrail and yet it managed to feel more flexible (at least to me) because you could do some stuff in parallel and not serialized.

[Nemekh]

Latest changes are now available in SE's job guide page for SMN here.

I have also made a post on my site summarising the notable changes here.

In other news, akhmorning.com is now live. Please look forward to our 5.0 materials!