Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[CecMiller]

The issue is that RDM was the high-apm caster. SMN was never really that busy. Tedious, micromanagey, but not super busy. You spent more time setting up for contagion than actually doing your burst window.

Just want to clear up some misconceptions.

SMN absolutely was the highest APM caster in Stormblood no contest. Furthermore, our pet actions with using obey were hidden from our CPM count - so every contagion and every aerial slash and shockwave did not count towards it regardless if you used obey and or not (and obey was used many times over in ultimates by myself for example). As a result our CPM is actually higher than what is shown in our logs aka it would be easily be above 40.

SMN in Stormblood (O9s): 39.2 (without pet actions).
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/6BmdK...ht=7&type=cast


RDM in Stromblood (O9s): 37.1
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/R7YPH...=24&type=casts

There is no doubt over which caster had the most buttons to press and SMN was busy if you were playing it well, but felt easier the better you were at it. Furthermore, I'm certain that I spent more time doing my burst than setting up contagion which is mostly a 3 button thing: Set on sic, then after bahamut, set on obey and wait for a 5 second difference between contagion and aerial slash before putting it on sic again. Thats about the extent of garuda contagion work I did and I had really good results for it.

RDM exists to be the high-APM finger-walking caster, and is very well set up to accomplish this role, whereas SMN is not set up to be a high-APM class, never has been, and doesn't feel especially good being a high-APM caster.

SMN does have access to ruin 2 which is why the myriad of OGCD's hasn't really been detrimental unless a large enough potenct difference of ruin 2 and ruin 3 is generated. Further, we had 2 16(?) second trances a minute to weave any ogcds that weren't Aetherflow actions. It felt better back then as we didnt have to keep double weaving as much as Fester's were always single weaved and you mostly double weaved to rush stuff.

*snip*
This is what drives the divisive nature of SMN in ShB. The class is definitely improved, but they took the class, plucked it from the middle ground between BLM and RDM where it existed, and threw it up above Bard. A lot of people coming to the class for the first time like it, a lot of SMN mains from SB found the transition jarring because the class functionally plays very differently with how it feels almost exclusively because of how busy the oGCDing is. And those oGCDs aren't complex.

I would say the class was improved in the pets/egi department and thats about it. (Bane was improved however too! Welcome change).

Its GCD's are now far more annoying. They do not have a base potency but are reliant on your dots existing and thus are worse for it as this only opens up opportunities to punish you whenever your dots do drop (as they eventually do for ticks)

Its OGCD's are worse as there are more of them and at a rate of 4 a minute, the Egi Assults are a bit pathetic in their own personal contribution outside of generating you a Ruin 4 stack. However, the main reason these are worse to me is that in 4.0, you could use these same abilities whilst casting Ruin 3, they had varying cooldowns and sic was offered.

Aetherflow has undeniably been made worse. It now requires 2 uses per minute and mandates that we be in combat AND have a target as a cherry on top. Its de-linking from the cycle has caused knock on effects to downtime and dots dropping without considering the reduced flexibility. If Aetherflow was the sole 60 second cooldown that we could use whilst not in combat and not requiring a target which kept our cycle flowing as it was in 4.0, a lot of our problems would be instantly solved. This was a great mechanic and extremely underated in what it could. Its power was clear to those that raided with SMN and had full knowledge of how to abuse it with respect to downtime. The changes done were to reduce wait times pre-pull and its my hope that Yoshida corrects this and does the smarter thing - give us full stacks after every wipe instead and re-introduce the old system with some changes if necessary. Even if we're forced to start at 0 stacks, it is still far better than what we have now.

The abilities that keep the rotation going are far worse. Comparing Aetherflow linking our cycle together and DWT/FBT embarasses the latter. We were far better off with the previous system. The good change here is being able to use Aetherflow actions inside trances (though the cycle could have easily been altered to allow you to do so whilst keeping all flexibility). However, with no magical bonus to now offer, the only reason for doing so is using it as a weave window which may be good enough in itself.

Dots are also worse now as a result of the DWT/Aetherflow change. You are forced to drop dots for ticks and have unbuffed ruin 3's just due to drift and how things work. The change to dots buffing your ruin spells has been extremely annoying and punishing for seemingly no reason. Imagine if Fire 4 only did half its potency if you didnt have thunder up - it would feel terrible when those situations were to occur especially when its a question of eventuallity rather than an individual mistake. Further, they do less damage via bane in AOE situatios which is another contributor to our low AOE dps.

Bahamut assuredly feels worse and has less interaction than before - I don't think much has to be said here. Without his OGCD mechanic, he flaps around and doesnt really do a whole lot and still follows you around after you command him to akhmorn (something that was present in 4.0). He just feels bad in general now besides being made weaker.

The main improvement for SMN as a whole is definitely the changes to pets not dying and so we dont have to micromanage their positioning as much as we did before (though they now like to despawn - please someone speed up their god damn movement speed)

Further, as a raiding SMN main in 4.0, I can deal with the Pet OGCDs (though I do agree that it feel like some unnecessary busy work). Thats not the most jarring thing for me. The worst feeling is absolutely Aetherflow and Trances and how they now function. Both are very clearly worse off from 4.0. Aetherflow and Trances and how they function together with respects to the cycle is what needs to be changed. The previously incarnation of SMN flowed extremely well - this one is awful in comparison. But I agree with your other points, these OGCDs are not really complex. The current optimization of SMN comes from being BLM with Ruin 3 whilst also using Ruin 4 stacks in place of Ruin 2 when possible. I'd argue the current SMN is harder than BLM to maximize damage with as BLM got a lot of comfy tools to use with xeno being instant.

There's very little real decision making to make on a SMN. You basically choose to hold devotion if the phasing lines up weird, and you can choose when to spend festers. You basically have no choice on every other mechanic, they either need to be spent as quickly as possible, or you're not punished for spending them quickly so there's no real reason to hold onto it, especially given how clunky the rotation gets once it does start bogging down with too many oGCDs.

I am in agreeement here. The optimization is now minimizing R2 and maximizing double weaves. Aetherflow/Festers optimization is linked to the latter, but every 60s you want it to line up with trick attack and/or chain and other buffs. But these are further than 30s apart so you will have 2 stacks of Aetherflow every 60s which aren't as optimizable as the other Aetherflow stacks. As you said, the other abilities are used on CD with some intial wait on FBT for your second devotion (if mechanics allow). If there is something more than that then it escapes me.

This differs from 4.0 where there was optimization in "rushing" the cycle itself, pairing trances with movement phases, timing deathflare/bahamut to akhmorn a set of adds at some moment, good use of contagion and other pet abilities (though for most SMNs, this was on sic). There was a lot more to consider and more, in my opinion, fun things to consider. These were all removed due to the changes in how our cycle now functions as we can no longer use trances and, therefore, rush bahamut on demand.

If I had to describe the two SMNs to someone, I would say 4.0 SMN was flexible and about maximizing gain, (rushing cycles and aetherflow when necessary, timing trances for movement and big AOE moves for add phases) where as 5.0 SMN was rigid and about minimizing loss (changes to Ruin vs. dots, minimizing R2 over R4, using trances immediately or risk losing dps from delaying). Yes, minimizing loss is maximizing gain, but the former allowed you to make the necessary decisions to maximize gain where as the latter is all about minimizing drift and unecessary ruin 2 casts over ruin 4. I personally found the former far more fun to do - I don't think I like this new "rigid" SMN.