What are your first impression of SMN?

[loreleidiangelo]

I've never understood some people's obssesion with Titan-Egi, I've been maining SMN since 2.2(ish) and have never needed to use it. You can just nuke enemies before being in danger of dying, unless your pulling way more enemies than you should be able.

It was helpful for finishing hunt log targets several levels above what your current level was...that's about it. Soloing A ranks with enough gear too, maybe. Tbh I wish Titan didn't sacrifice so much base potency just for the shield, because I think the shield is a cool concept but it's hard to justify using him outside of niche situations even when doing solo play.

[Stormblessed9000]

So far as I'm concerned, they've pretty much made lower levels unplayable. Migrating from WoW, I landed on Summoner because it had shown itself to be a close cousin to Warlock - summoning different demons/pets/minions/etc to function in different roles.

Titan was essentially a Voidwalker - a tanking pet to help keep mobs' agro while you burn them down - but SE somehow got the 'brilliant' notion to REMOVE all of Titan's tanking abilities.

I've since spent my days futzing about with other classes/jobs, hoping SE gets their head out of their backside and fixes this.

While I understand that having a pocket tank is very nice (I also played a warlock back in vanilla WoW), no other class needs one to clear content. Without it, summoners aren't worse at doing content than other comparable DPS classes, especially since everyone gets a chocobo to heal them anyway. If summoners are unplayable, then so are every other DPS besides maybe RDM.

[Yandere-chan]

I think aside from Titan's Egi Assault 1 not triggering Ruin IV (it absolutely should and seems more like an oversight than intentional), his shield is really nice for easing into a fight and learning it. Her partner mains white mage, and when we do content for the first time, or if others are really pressing her for heals, I like to use Titan for his shields to absorb undodgable aoes and such to make her job a bit easier. The difference in dps isn't really that bad since most of your damage comes directly from you. The shields do really add up too. You start out with essentially 40% extra hp and get an extra 20% every 30 seconds on top of that.

[TwylaFox]

If summoners are unplayable, then so are every other DPS besides maybe RDM.

It could just be that I'm mucking about with lower levels but mobility is a big factor. Melee DPSers (even Tanks) can bounce around like ferrets on crack without compromising their efficacy; Archers/Bards can strafe on the run; etc.

This leaves the straight-up casters.

Scholar has similar issues when soloing (weak DPS - base potency 80) but is compensated with massive healing abilities - while Conjurer/White Mage and Astrologian have similar standing, their DPS potency (140/150) is nearly double that of Arcanist/Summoner. The only other straight-up DPS caster is Thaumaturge/Black Mage, whose DPS potency (180) is even greater still.

(And relying in choco-heals can be a major trap, particularly as they get shunted from all instances/duties - including the many solo duties which arise during normal questing/leveling.)

[Daethir]

So far as I'm concerned, they've pretty much made lower levels unplayable. Migrating from WoW, I landed on Summoner because it had shown itself to be a close cousin to Warlock - summoning different demons/pets/minions/etc to function in different roles.

Titan was essentially a Voidwalker - a tanking pet to help keep mobs' agro while you burn them down - but SE somehow got the 'brilliant' notion to REMOVE all of Titan's tanking abilities.

I've since spent my days futzing about with other classes/jobs, hoping SE gets their head out of their backside and fixes this.

I tried to play with Titan for a bit when I unlocked it but I would always take the aggro back after like 3 spell, I don't get this forum love for Titan it was nearly useless. Imo they made low level SMN feel A LOT better, they get their core spell much earlier now, it's nice to have some additional button to press in leveling roulette, before it was Miasma > Bio > Ruin > Ruin > Ruin > Ruin > Ruin > Ruin > Ruin > Ruin > Ruin > Ruin > Ruin ...

[Kyohei]

I personally love the new SMN. My biggest gripes in 4.0 were the long set up for Bahamut and the lack of quick AoE options outside of Dreadwyrm and Ark Morn. They Fixed both and gave us Ark Morn 2.0 (Pheonix) .

I can't think of anything to complain about, it is very well done.

What are your thoughts

I also love the changes they made. Titan not being a tank pet anymore scared me at first but it's working very well in the end, if not better than before coupled with chocobo. The job is way more fun to play than clunky SB smn.
Also, compared to some other jobs, low level SMN is not as boring while running past expansions content. A very pleasing surprise.
My only issue is pet's lack of feedback, aside from seeing it next to you in the world, you have no feedbacks whatsoever for the pets. This is something they should try to fix imo because they put dots on ennemies and it's not displayed anywhere else but on the pet itself, meaning you have to keep a focal on the pet if you want feedbacks.

Might be edgy to say this but maybe they should just make trances out of titan/garuda/ifrit. Instead of summoning, switching from trances to trances and executing the primal-trances assault instead of egi's assault. That way the smn can have all the feedbacks instead of them being on an HUD invisible entity.

[JarenCorax]

Summoner was barely a pet class when I started playing. Now it isn't at all; there's no trading of aggro, and the pet's abilities might as well just be the summoner's own. You don't even get info on what the pet will do in the tooltips for egi assault 1 & 2, and you can't even put the pet abilities on the hotbar just to have them available. I've unsubbed for now because the class is no longer any fun to play. It isn't a question of viability as others have discussed in other threads, it's a matter of how the class feels.

[Stormblessed9000]

It could just be that I'm mucking about with lower levels but mobility is a big factor. Melee DPSers (even Tanks) can bounce around like ferrets on crack without compromising their efficacy; Archers/Bards can strafe on the run; etc.

This leaves the straight-up casters.

Scholar has similar issues when soloing (weak DPS - base potency 80) but is compensated with massive healing abilities - while Conjurer/White Mage and Astrologian have similar standing, their DPS potency (140/150) is nearly double that of Arcanist/Summoner. The only other straight-up DPS caster is Thaumaturge/Black Mage, whose DPS potency (180) is even greater still.

(And relying in choco-heals can be a major trap, particularly as they get shunted from all instances/duties - including the many solo duties which arise during normal questing/leveling.)

Moving does absolutely nothing. The enemy will follow you and hit you just as much. The only things that can actually be dodged are the targeted ground AoEs and casters can dodge those just as well as melee. Some of them let melee DPS step to the side and continue doing damage but others force you to step back, favoring ranged jobs like summoner.

As for solo instance duties, those are usually incredibly easy and often have healer NPCs to help you as well. Again, classes with worse survival tools than summoners titan shield are able to clear them easily.

[Nemekh]

I think aside from Titan's Egi Assault 1 not triggering Ruin IV (it absolutely should and seems more like an oversight than intentional), his shield is really nice for easing into a fight and learning it. Her partner mains white mage, and when we do content for the first time, or if others are really pressing her for heals, I like to use Titan for his shields to absorb undodgable aoes and such to make her job a bit easier. The difference in dps isn't really that bad since most of your damage comes directly from you. The shields do really add up too. You start out with essentially 40% extra hp and get an extra 20% every 30 seconds on top of that.

It's intentional per Japanese tooltips for only EA Attacks to result in Ruin IVs. The shield's not an attack. It's not specified in the English. But that's just more on the fact that non-JP tooltips are woefully lacking in general.

[Taranok]

Moving does absolutely nothing. The enemy will follow you and hit you just as much. The only things that can actually be dodged are the targeted ground AoEs and casters can dodge those just as well as melee. Some of them let melee DPS step to the side and continue doing damage but others force you to step back, favoring ranged jobs like summoner.

As for solo instance duties, those are usually incredibly easy and often have healer NPCs to help you as well. Again, classes with worse survival tools than summoners titan shield are able to clear them easily.

Moving helps, the enemy won't hit you just as much, as every time it attacks, it stops, then it has to "reacquire" you and run towards you, back into melee, and attack again.

This slight stuttering that enemies do from movement actually can drop your overall incoming damage by 20-50%, and works wonders in dungeons if the tank dies since you can pop sprint, run around, and give the healer time to keep you up or get the tank up instead of you just collapsing into a pile of meat in 2 seconds from attacks.

So don't discount movement, it's obscenely powerful to reduce incoming damage. You are correct that the enemy will still hit you, but not while it's catching up, which takes an extra half second or so to do.