Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[Myon88]

Summoner was always a '3 layer job' or whatever you want to call it, nothing has changed in that regard.

1. Generate and spend aetherflow
2. Activate dreadwyrm trance (twice)
3. Summon demi bahamut, repeat

Well, actually something has changed. The old version was more flexible because within each 1 minute interval after aetherflow, you could choose to use dreadwyrm trance and summon bahamut at any time you liked. With the new system, the first step in the cycle is to activate dreadwyrm trance, and if you do so at 0:05 at the beginning of the fight for example, you must activate it again at 1:05 in order to maximize your damage. If the boss chooses to disappear at 1:00 for some reason, now you have a serious dilemma on your hands.

I'm pretty sure the starter of this thread knows all this stuff very well because of their extensive raid experience. In fact, I think you will find that the more experienced someone is with summoner, the more they tend to dislike the 5.0 changes because they have a full understanding of all the liabilities the new design contains.

[Kyohei]

I've been playing this job since ARR and no it wasn't always like this. ARR smn wasn't, HW smn wasn't, SB smn started a bit by repeating dreadwyrm rotation twice then summoning bahamut. However the SB smn seemed like a rough and clunky sketch of what it's become now. ShB according to me made a clearer design for smn job.
All i can say it that for now i find this new design more fun to play and a lot less clunky than its SB iteration.
I don't think one really ever "choose" to use dreadwyrm trance or summon bahamut. Maybe there was an illusion of choice and flexibility but once bahamut was ready, one would summon it. Using dreadwyrm instead of bahamut would be a waste a dreadwyrm and postpone the ability to summon bahamut again. The system how it's designed now remove this possibility to "waste" anything. It's just a matter of getting used to the whole thing and seeing it differently.
Also still the beginning of the new expansion so no one can say they understand all of its content and gotten used to/mastered all of them.
Not liking the new smn because they were experienced with SB one? Maybe, because most of the time the more experienced you are with a job, the less easy it is to accept/understand changes and adapt. The brain being wired into the previous iteration makes it so, and it often takes more than a week to adapt to new things. Especially if it's one's main job and they've been doing the same thing for all these years. However it's inaccurate and certainly not a fact to link disliking and fully understanding the new design.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

I've been playing this job since ARR and no it wasn't always like this. ARR smn wasn't, HW smn wasn't, SB smn started a bit by repeating dreadwyrm rotation twice then summoning bahamut. However the SB smn seemed like a rough and clunky sketch of what it's become now. ShB according to me made a clearer design for smn job.
All i can say it that for now i find this new design more fun to play and a lot less clunky than its SB iteration.
I don't think one really ever "choose" to use dreadwyrm trance or summon bahamut. Maybe there was an illusion of choice and flexibility but once bahamut was ready, one would summon it. Using dreadwyrm instead of bahamut would be a waste a dreadwyrm and postpone the ability to summon bahamut again. The system how it's designed now remove this possibility to "waste" anything. It's just a matter of getting used to the whole thing and seeing it differently.
Also still the beginning of the new expansion so no one can say they understand all of its content and gotten used to/mastered all of them.
Not liking the new smn because they were experienced with SB one? Maybe, because most of the time the more experienced you are with a job, the less easy it is to accept/understand changes and adapt. The brain being wired into the previous iteration makes it so, and it often takes more than a week to adapt to new things. Especially if it's one's main job and they've been doing the same thing for all these years. However it's inaccurate and certainly not a fact to link disliking and fully understanding the new design.

I feel like you're lacking a little bit of an understanding of the job. I mean yeah ARR SMN was pretty much DoT and dot maintenance and maximizing Raging Strikes damage uptime via manipulating DoT snapshots, but HW SMN was all about how many DWT you could line up one right after the other by abusing the timers on aethertrails and Aetherflow which added a significant layer of complexity which you could use to hold your burst phases for either party buffs or to avoid boss invulnerability phases. With SB Summoner you could absolutely hold both Bahamut and DWT for up to 40secs each depending on the CD on Aetherflow, you could even build towards your next DWT during Bahamut which lead to an even further level of complexity and choice there.

We've lost pretty much ALL of that. If you don't want to take a massive damage loss, you use Trance/Bahamut as soon as they're available, otherwise you're pushing back Bahamuts and Phoenixs later in the fight, most likely pushing them out of alignment with things like Trick Attack, AST Cards and DNC dances.

[Kyohei]

If you want to assume i'm not understanding the job because i like ShB summoner then whatever.
That said, i'm very much aware of how we used to play HW smn to maximise the trance and explained it to many people who asked how i was managing such dps with smn back then. But it wasn't a three layers rotation, it was one complete big rotation.
Yes we could do that with SB smn but again it doesn't make up for the fact it was a clunky job to play and not as well rounded and fun to play as how HW smn was. ShB complexity resides in the ability to make the most of dreadwyrm/demi bahamut/phoenix while at the same time making sure nothing stays unused, and being able to keep track of stacks of ruins/aetheflow up for Bahamut, and aetherflow ready for phoenix. The choices/complexity/optimisation now resides no more on how many trance/demis you can pull off per X second but on how you will make the most of them by choosing which of your other skills to coupled to them. That's why i'm saying it's now a clearer 3 layers rotation, because you don't choose anymore when to dreadwyrm/demi. You don't optimise anymore on the time to have them but during the time you have them.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

If you want to assume i'm not understanding the job because i like ShB summoner then whatever.
That said, i'm very much aware of how we used to play HW smn to maximise the trance and explained it to many people who asked how i was managing such dps with smn back then. But it wasn't a three layers rotation, it was one complete big rotation.
Yes we could do that with SB smn but again it doesn't make up for the fact it was a clunky job to play and not as well rounded and fun to play as how HW smn was. ShB complexity resides in the ability to make the most of dreadwyrm/demi bahamut/phoenix while at the same time making sure nothing stays unused, and being able to keep track of stacks of ruins/aetheflow up for Bahamut, and aetherflow ready for phoenix. The choices/complexity/optimisation now resides no more on how many trance/demis you can pull off but on how you will make the most of them by choosing which of your other skills to coupled to them.

I'm not assuming you're lacking in understanding because you like ShB SMN. I'm saying you're lacking in understanding because you're saying that when we used DWT and Demi-Bahamut wasn't really a choice or that it was an illusion of choice. Which is objectively and patently false. As is the idea that the way things are now removes the ability for us to "waste" a DWT, Bahamut or a Phoenix. Those absolutely can still be wasted, it's just not up to us whether or not it's wasted or not anymore because not using them on CD is a damage loss regardless of whether there's a target or not, or whether or not Trick Attack/AST Cards are up. There's very little optimization to be made in that gameplay, and if you can't see that then I can't really help you.

[Kyohei]

There is a fair amount of optimisation compared to the other jobs, and likewise if you can't see that i can't help you either. I'm glad i can appreciate smn again and have fun with it anyway.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

There is a fair amount of optimisation compared to the other jobs, and likewise if you can't see that i can't help you either. I'm glad i can appreciate smn again and have fun with it anyway.

Where? Where is the optimization? Because it certainly isn't in Aetherflow usage, that's pretty much blow on CD, since being a 30sec CD doesn't really line it up with anything of note and with the uses combined with the 5sec CD means that we can't line it up for an explosive burst with Trick Attack, which would be cool. It's not in Egi Assault as those do pretty much no damage and are very heavily prone to clipping and erroring in such a way that makes actually optimizing their use next to impossible. It's not in Trance/Bahamut usage for reasons that pretty much everyone else gone over. Ruin II versus Ruin III usage? Maybe? Because that's pretty much it. Now if you would deign to point out where the optimization points that you're seeing are, I'd be glad to give them a test.

[CecMiller]

*snip*
However the SB smn seemed like a rough and clunky sketch of what it's become now. ShB according to me made a clearer design for smn job. All i can say it that for now i find this new design more fun to play and a lot less clunky than its SB iteration.

Its seems SchrodingersWaffle has covered most of what I would have said, but I was hoping you could elaborate on a few bits.

In what way did you find Stormblood Summoner "Clunky" and why do you feel the design has made clearer? Could you specify the design changes that occured that achieved this clearer design? If you are speaking of the direction the job is headed towards demi summons, then I can understand you and I like that too, but the mechanics behind how we approach the summons in our rotation is what I take issue with.

I can understand if its your personally opinion, but looking back at 4.0 SMN, the stuff that was clunky there was mostly due to pets and their responsiveness i.e. Garuda Contagion. Pets were reworkeed and made to be more responsive and is a welcome change. I'm more concerned about what happened outside of the pets. I'm trying to think about what else was clunky.

1. Aetherflow was straight forward as was DWT. I don't think these were clunky. If you found not being able to use AF inside DWT clunky, then there is a solution which allows us to use AF inside DWT as stated at the bottom of my opening post. It gives us the same flexibility of 4.0 and maintains our current CPM playstyle but with more player choice/expression for how and when we want to use said trances.

2. Bahamut interacted with OGCDs - is this what you found clunky? I honestly prefer that to what he is now. He is a shadow of his former self and his "clunkyness" remains there to be seen. By clunkyness, I'm referring to how he follows you around and doesnt to want to stay put and how if you move around too much, he can "ghost" his abilities long after you've given the command for him to enkindle for example.

3. Bane was tied to Aetherflow stacks back then but is changed now - and it is a very welcome one. Not clunky either.

4. Pets and abilities such as contagion. Admittedly, pet responsiveness was a very polarizing topic and whilst I miss contagion personally, I am happy to see the improved pet responsiveness but it needs to be even more responsive than it is now. However, pets were a much smaller part and it seems you take issue with the actual rotation in itself.

5. Ruin 4 generating at a 15% chance on pet action vs. how they do now vs. Egi actions. I wouldn't call this clunky and simply a change in design. I don't mind either, but again, it was not something awfully important to the rotation.

This was by no means an exhaustive list, but I'm having trouble understanding what exactly has changed that you do not find clunky anymore.

If its simply the Ruin 4 change or pets changing, then you should have no issue if Aetherflow and DWT were reworked to be as they were in 4.0 as they were never clunky to begin with.

I don't think one really ever "choose" to use dreadwyrm trance or summon bahamut. Maybe there was an illusion of choice and flexibility but once bahamut was ready, one would summon it. Using dreadwyrm instead of bahamut would be a waste a dreadwyrm and postpone the ability to summon bahamut again. The system how it's designed now remove this possibility to "waste" anything. It's just a matter of getting used to the whole thing and seeing it differently.

There was no illusion of flexibility. This is just a fact of 4.0+ SMN. The moment you spent Aetherflow stacks was the moment DWT became active and when you were free to use it to your hearts content ie. for planned movement phases for example.

If you are referring to optimal play, I would say I have a lot of experience with this as its the most fun I have when raiding or doing any content, even dungeons. The reason why this "flexibility" was great for me was that you could easily express your player skill with smart usage of your abilities like timing bahamut summons for Add phases or saving DWT for movement phases. Its true that when you consider the case of playing optimally, there never really is a "flexible" option in that regard. You can literally spreadsheet the entire fight and, provided everything goes as planned, follow this set rotation.

However - the players and jobs you play with can affect your rotation Some teams kill stuff faster, push stuff fast, others kill stuff slow, and push stuff slow. Others use their party buffs optimally, others dont. As a result, you have different timings based on how your group performs. You cannot spreadsheet every possibility which means that this flexibility was incredibly useful when you knew how to use it regardless of how your team was to perform.

Also still the beginning of the new expansion so no one can say they understand all of its content and gotten used to/mastered all of them.
Not liking the new smn because they were experienced with SB one? Maybe, because most of the time the more experienced you are with a job, the less easy it is to accept/understand changes and adapt. The brain being wired into the previous iteration makes it so, and it often takes more than a week to adapt to new things. Especially if it's one's main job and they've been doing the same thing for all these years.

Whilst its true there is a learning curve and player will need to beat old habits (I myself was used to pressing ruin 4 on cooldown) players have already begin to understand the workings of the job (some kind souls have made us an entire rotation spreadsheet to play with!). Playing the job in actual extreme fights and dungeons plainly shows that the current 5.0 SMN kit was changed to have considerably worse management over Aetherflow and having it re-linked to the cycle would only benefit us. Its because of our experience with 4.0+ SMN that the problems with 5.0 SMN are so glaring as we are able to immediately identify the scenarios in which the 4.0 SMN wouldn't suffer from.

When you go from being able to consistantly refresh aetherflow and the only barrier being your own attention span, to now requiring to be in combat AND having a target, its clear as day to see which system was plainly speaking - better.

When I was previously able to go from pack to pack in a dungeon without a pause in my summoner cycle in 4.0 to now being forced to pause the cycle and lose uses of DWT/FBT/Bahamut over the course of the dungeon at the mercy of the tank and/or team, it is clear as day to see which system was better.

Regardless of what system is being used, I am absolutely using it as optimally as I think I should at this current point in time. Without statstics and logs to back me up on this front, I will have to wait a while to present the data.

But my main point is, it is due to our extensive experience with 4.0 SMN that we understand where it lacks when compared to 5.0 SMN.

*snip*
In fact, I think you will find that the more experienced someone is with summoner, the more they tend to dislike the 5.0 changes because they have a full understanding of all the liabilities the new design contains.

I am in agreement with this personally.

]However it's inaccurate and certainly not a fact to link disliking and fully understanding the new design.

They were commenting on the liabilities in particular, but besides that, a lot of work has gone into understanding the rotation of the new summoner and those well versed in 4.0 will understand the nuances of where this new job is strong and where it is weak. They were stating that our experience with 4.0 SMN allows us to see the situations in which the design of the 4.0 SMN systems are superior to that of 5.0 SMN as I've already mentioned above with Aetherflow and DWT and previously in my other post. I'm not sure what more I can say on this topic.

I'm glad you're enjoying the new summoner, but I hope you can see that there are areas in which it can absolutely be improved.

If you are opposed to these changes, please could you explain why you are opposed to them in more detail as I only see benefits from the change with regards to my change suggested at the bottom of my opening post.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

In fact, I think you will find that the more experienced someone is with summoner, the more they tend to dislike the 5.0 changes because they have a full understanding of all the liabilities the new design contains.

I mean, I like the idea that they had behind it and the very general direction they were going with it, e.g. Make SMN more about Summons and less about DoTs/Bahamut, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired and pretty much every point you, Nemehk and CecMiller have made is pretty spot on.