Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[CecMiller]

Couldn't a lot of the flexibility problems for summoner be alleviated by allowing trance to stack up to 2 charges (and reducing its cooldown to 30s)? Tri-disaster could similarly carry 2 charges (with trances restoring one charge), but I'm not sure what a good cooldown would be. Of course, you'd still have to cycle through Bahamut to gain access to Phoenix. I think this would be a good compromise between people who like the current system and people who want to see the flexibility of aetherflow return.

I agree that summoner AoE being complex is enjoyable, but I don't like its current incarnation. If outburst was an instant spell and did not rely on ruination, I think summoner's AoE would be much more fun, still be pretty interactive, and wouldn't interfere with switching back to single target as much.

I'm not against this idea at all - your idea is much better than the current situation we're in so it would be a welcome change!

The change I was suggesting was that, on aetherflow refresh (the same 60s CD it was before), the trance immediately became available for use within those 60 seconds. Having 4.0 SMN aetherflow being the gate between the cooler segments of our rotation (trances/demi summons) not only generates flexibility but increased downtime power and more opportunities to weave to account for any missteps that may have occured. It also re-introudces "rushing" opportunities as something that players can do to express their mastery over a jobs capabilties - this is currently not possible with a hard 60s CD or a hard anything CD. If its available for an entire 60s duration for you to use as you wish, it would be an improvement on the 4.0 design.

Charges system was one of the first things I considered, but the condition of 60s for Trance as a hard cooldown was the breaking point. This is because it seems like the intention is for it to be a 2 minute rotation and reducing it to 30s as you suggest would lead it to being a 1 min rotation (unless I'm missing something). Further, with the changes to Trances being a hard 60s, our dots are currently forcibly dropped. This is something that would only be alleviated by allowing flexible Trance timings instead of hard trance timings or a reduction in the Trance cooldown from 60s to 50s say. However, any reduction in the Trance CD timer "speeds up" the cycle meaning it no longer becomes a 2 minute rotation as envisioned. This may not be a bad thing, but I think that 2 minutes is what SE has been aiming for as it has remained the same since 4.0 and not changed in any way since.

[Miralyth]

I'm not against this idea at all - your idea is much better than the current situation we're in so it would be a welcome change!

The change I was suggesting was that, on aetherflow refresh (the same 60s CD it was before), the trance immediately became available for use within those 60 seconds. Having 4.0 SMN aetherflow being the gate between the cooler segments of our rotation (trances/demi summons) not only generates flexibility but increased downtime power.

Charges system was one of the first things I considered but the condition of 60s for Trance as a hard cooldown was the breaking point. This is because it seems like the intention is for it to be a 2 minute rotation. However, with the changes to Trances being a hard 60s, our dots are forcibly dropped! This is something that would only be alleviated by allowing flexible Trance timings or a reduction in the Trance cooldown. However, any reduction in the Trance CD timer "speeds up" the cycle meaning it no longer becomes a 2 minute rotation as envisioned. This may not be a bad thing, but I think that 2 minutes is what SE has been aiming for as it has remained the same since 4.0 and not changed in any way since.

Oh, you're right, I just woke up and my math suffered for it, lol. I think what I intended to say was trances remaining on a 60s cooldown but stacking up to 2 charges. Your idea of aetherflow unlocking trance would function the same, so I'd be just as happy with that - especially if they allowed the trance unlocks to stack up to two charges.

I wanted to touch upon something earlier that was discussed about Bahamut, too. I agree that he is the least exciting phase we have. Phoenix is just amazing and Dreadwyrm trance gives you instant spells, whereas Bahamut just feels like the start of downtime for me. Ideally, I'd like to see Bahamut have instant spells as well, but I don't think the devs will want to do this because it will result in a lot of extra ruin IVs for downtime. I'm not sure what they could do; bringing back wyrmwaves for fester would be okay, but it would add even more of an unforgiving nature to the rotation and force you to spend energy drain/fester around Bahamut instead of dumping it with Phoenix/dreadwyrm during trick attack or the like. Maybe they could allow ruin 3 to be instant after using ruin 4 during Bahamut only. I'm not sure. Bahamut having access to egi-assaults could be okay, too, but then pet animation locks/movement interactions might become even more frustrating. I feel like Bahamut is such an awkward thing to improve right now.

Edit: I take it back. Maybe instant Bahamut spells would be a good thing. It would force aware players to dump Ruin IV charges into the remaining time of ruination before Phoenix so that they don't overcap, and make the "downtime" of summoner feel much more satisfying. We would still have the post-Phoenix downtime of hard-casting to contend with as far as minimizing ruin 2 goes (I'm looking at you, lining up ED with hard-cast DoTs), so I think this would be good maybe?

[Jikillia]

If i recall one of the more frequent suggestion that pops was tie DWT and demi-baha as one like that of FBT. I am starting to see the reasoning behind it and if we can gain dmg buff again from the trances, it would be added bonus :P

[Rakith]

I've never lagged behind any other DPS as much as i do now. MCH and RDM do as much or even better than i do dps wise...
I'm so disappointed. SMN feels messy. I cant see why a PF or roster would recruit a SMN now. I feel so sad. Loved the idea of phoenix, love the pet management but i feel useless...
And i dont think practice will make things get better...
I couldnt even tell what would fix that, it just a subjective feeling. Aetherstacks used to be thefounding of our rotation and burst phase, now they re just here to trigger painflare and fester...
I really think they should revamp the job a bit.

[Incision93]

I've never lagged behind any other DPS as much as i do now

I did a run with my static on innocence yesterday. I managed a 99 (with ninja killing me with an aoe on purpose at 2%), with dancer, 9 akhmorns in 8 tricks (thanks laggy bahamut), 8 revealations and 50% phoenix in tricks, and the drg tethering me 24/7, and rushing dwt+bahamut+using all ruin4 at the end. I did 10 dps less than unbuffed drg.

The problem is that, compared to sb, loosing so much utility and rdps on most jobs (smn lost basically everything), the gap now between jobs definitely made them a full "comp to buff blm". I don't see any reason to consider viable some classes.

Many say that they have positionals, many say mch is selfish and need to be so high while beeing free to move. The payoff for standing still for ruin3, longest rotation, high adaptation requirements, now selfish af, still fcked on deaths if you just pressed your trance is not there at all. From third to bottom with nothing to compensate. Imho, aside from ffxiv context and my loved smn, in every game an harder class should do more than the easier one, obviously role dependant

The problem now is that if BLM does 100, we do 75/80 at best. There is nothing that SMN gets to fill that gap. I used to say "if you are not godlike, using blm in ultimate/savage is just cause you want challenge" but you COULD still do godlike and get rewarded for it.
Now is "if you are godlike, using smn is just cause you want challenge in every content, and still you will suck. Enjoy deaths too".

[Rakith]

Now is "if you are godlike, using smn is just cause you want challenge in every content, and still you will suck. Enjoy deaths too".

You're so right. I hope SE will see our despair and will MAKE OUR JOB GREAT AGAIN.

[ShadowNyx3]

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).

It seems like they tried to make these easier since they're basically forcing everyone to use obey now, but it's clearly not easier at all. It almost makes me think that the only way to solve the pet action input delay was to make these oGCDs (or the only way they could be bothered to attempt a fix). Beyond just being a pain to have to weave these after instant casts, the dropped uses you mentioned are just as annoying as having delayed inputs before, and even then as you say, becoming a serious SMN main allowed you to deal with the old pet quirks once you understood them so I'd take that over the myriad extra oGCDs.


The whole philosophy of trying so many major changes to Summoner was and is completely unfounded and frankly insulting when you compare how much easier and enjoyable other classes seem to be with their QoL changes and additions.

There was zero reason to change trances from being aetherflow-charged to hard cooldowns. The progression of trance from HW to the mid-SB changes was logical, following the trend of making classes less punishing, and the final result was well designed. I will never understand the decision to change this when it was lumped in with MCH and BRD in that live letter as classes that needed major changes. It makes no sense.

[Taranok]

There's another option available. You can also just tie aetherflow directly to trance, and make trance the 60s cooldown, possibly allowing spillover along the lines of a BLM's Foul charges. Having cooldowns get disrupted by boss mechanics is fine, as is strategically saving them. But this way, you can only get Aetherflow when you can reasonably spend it in a block of guaranteed instant cast GCDs, which will free up ruin 4s for movement expenditure instead of for nothing but oGCD usage most of the time.

I'd also turn DWT into spawning DB directly instead of summoning DB as a separate action, and then just buff the damage of everything else to compensate for the lowered use of aetherflows.

For low level, they can keep energy drain combined with energy siphon (one button), but once you hit 58, it upgrades drain/siphon directly into trance instead. I don't even care if they add damage to the trances since it's being combined with ED under such a scenario and force it to only be castable when a boss is active, hell, they could save Deathflare this way by making DWT -open- with deathflare and summon DB during it as well. The point is you keep the 2 mechanics tied together and it eliminates a major source of the clunky business between burst windows. The opener will still be a mess, but even removing a single oGCD does wonders for smoothing it out.

There was zero reason to change trances from being aetherflow-charged to hard cooldowns. The progression of trance from HW to the mid-SB changes was logical, following the trend of making classes less punishing, and the final result was well designed. I will never understand the decision to change this when it was lumped in with MCH and BRD in that live letter as classes that needed major changes. It makes no sense.

This was done for several reasons, actually. One, Aetherflow being usable out of combat created situations where players wanted to stack up the mechanic before pulling else it would really mess up the opener. Two, in HW, players used the mechanic in a way flat out not intended by the devs, which was pacing Aetherflow charges to be able to spend 2 of them during DWT for +10% damage. The devs got rid of this in SB, much to the chagrin of the playerbase. The devs desynced it entirely in ShB because in ARR and HW, Aetherflow was your primary mechanic. In SB and ShB, trancing is the primary mechanic, so keeping it tied to a mechanic players don't really use anymore primarily is a strange problem.

The issue is that the redesign is redundant with EA, easy to miss, desyncs easily and, once desynced, causes issues, in addition to just making the mid-trance rotation really awkward for no reason.

Trance being a primary mechanic? Sure. 1m rotation? Sure. Can't bank it? Sure. Okay, why is another major source of damage in the same boat, on a faster rotation, and massively clutters the rotation?

[CecMiller]

It seems like they tried to make these easier since they're basically forcing everyone to use obey now, but it's clearly not easier at all. It almost makes me think that the only way to solve the pet action input delay was to make these oGCDs (or the only way they could be bothered to attempt a fix). Beyond just being a pain to have to weave these after instant casts, the dropped uses you mentioned are just as annoying as having delayed inputs before, and even then as you say, becoming a serious SMN main allowed you to deal with the old pet quirks once you understood them so I'd take that over the myriad extra oGCDs.

Yes, I personally view the changes as a downgrade. That said though, they could be upgrades if they didnt feel as busy and did something more meaningful (personal opinion). I just wish that they were even more responsive than they currently are and we can only hope it gets iterated on!

The whole philosophy of trying so many major changes to Summoner was and is completely unfounded and frankly insulting when you compare how much easier and enjoyable other classes seem to be with their QoL changes and additions.

There was zero reason to change trances from being aetherflow-charged to hard cooldowns. The progression of trance from HW to the mid-SB changes was logical, following the trend of making classes less punishing, and the final result was well designed. I will never understand the decision to change this when it was lumped in with MCH and BRD in that live letter as classes that needed major changes. It makes no sense.

I agree with you: "Don't fix what isn't broken". SMN's cycle being decided by the Aetherflow clock didn't need "fixing". The thing that needed fixing was that on Raid Wipe, stacks were instantly generated back to full and AF available to use or a button similar to hide from ninja (Use AF -> Hide (out of combat only) -> AF ready again). The latter might have been way too strong in dungeons and I would have preffered the former aka just giving us the stacks. If the goal was to reduce stress and reduce wait time, I'd argue they went and did the most convoluted changes to acheive something that seemingly should be relatively easy to do (given that you can get full stacks for charged abilities after death).

Yeah there was a trend about making the jobs less punishing and easier to play. I also feel the old SMN simply need to be iterated on vs. this "re-work". I'm not sure why they decided on massive changes either. Our JP friends over the pond have similar inclinations regarding Aetherflow (They're asking for Energy Drain/Siphon to be deleted and getting Aetherflow back in addition to it deciding our cycle again) and a lot of other stuff that matches what I've already stated (they miss the bahamut interaction/he feels weak etc).

We can only hope the devs read our feedback and do something about it! Further, due to the pet (ifrit damage almost got halved! 2.9k burning strikes to 1.5k, dot (2.2k dot ticks vs. 1.5k) and cycle changes (unflexible, can't be planned for movement phases without delaying cycle and forced delaying vs. previous rush ability), the job is really not doing too well inside ultimate in the most recent clears I've seen (usually close to bottom dps). The upgrades to ruin potencies are proving to not be enough to cover the damage that has been done due to a lot of the job changes which arguablly didnt need to happen as you've said.

This was done for several reasons, actually. One, Aetherflow being usable out of combat created situations where players wanted to stack up the mechanic before pulling else it would really mess up the opener. Two, in HW, players used the mechanic in a way flat out not intended by the devs, which was pacing Aetherflow charges to be able to spend 2 of them during DWT for +10% damage. The devs got rid of this in SB, much to the chagrin of the playerbase. The devs desynced it entirely in ShB because in ARR and HW, Aetherflow was your primary mechanic. In SB and ShB, trancing is the primary mechanic, so keeping it tied to a mechanic players don't really use anymore primarily is a strange problem.

The opener wasn't really "messy". It was created to optimally get all our abilities under raid buffs and get us to bahamut as fast as possible. The reasons given for the change as quoted by Yoshida is that it was a "Stress" mechanic and that they wanted to reduce the wait time pre-pull. I can only really say they accomplished the first task. Also, I would refrain from stating what is and what was not intended from the devs without citations - I personally have not heard this anywhere. Aetherflow inside DWT was not "make or break". The major optimization point in HW was always mana management with R3 Maximization. However, buffs and team comps caused large differences to occur, besides the skill differences between good and bad players. Keeping it tied to the cycle is very beneficial when it comes to being able to freely expend the resource and use Trances and demi summons on demand rather than when the cooldown happens to come up. You've touched on Foul Polygot stacks - It has a full 30s you can use them for before it ticks over. This is not so far different from Aetherflow and its stacks. The power in downtime that BLMs generate has been increased whilst SMNs has been effectively sundered.

Here Yoshida talks about Aetherflow:

To Quote: https://old.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...our_interview/

Q: Aetherflow was also separated from the Dreadwyrm Trance/Summon Bahamut cycle.

Yoshida: Regaining Aetherflow was also a stress point, and now we're focusing on the actual act of summoning. Up until now, there was a bit of downtime after summoning Bahamut, so now you can continue on with summoning Firebird, doing a large summon whenever the recast time rolls around. This mechanical change was simply a result of addressing a major cause of stress.

Its ironic then that their changes caused Aetherflow generation to become even more stressful whilst simply changing said stress point into DWT/FBT which are much worse for it due to their "you must use this immediately to gain benefit" function. This is a big reason for our drop in power.

More info can be gleamed from:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...aL704g/preview

We didn’t have time to take a look at Red Mage or Summoner, please tell us more about them

Yoshida: It difficult to describe the new Summoner just using words. All pet summons will be instant, so you can swap between your pets depending on the situation. It feels a lot more like a “Summoner”. After you used “Summon Bahamut” it felt like the rotation got too boring, so now you can summon Phoenix. You will have one of them at each time by your side to fight along with you. We removed the annoying part of stacking your “Aetherflow” pre-pull as well. Pet will execute actions on command as well now, so the confusing parts of Summoner changed and it will feel a lot more like a *true* summoner

Its undeniable that they fixed pre-pull issues for SMN, but its generated more issues when there were more elegant ways to fix said issue in raids as has been discussed earlier.

[CecMiller]

I wanted to touch upon something earlier that was discussed about Bahamut, too. I agree that he is the least exciting phase we have. Phoenix is just amazing and Dreadwyrm trance gives you instant spells, whereas Bahamut just feels like the start of downtime for me. Ideally, I'd like to see Bahamut have instant spells as well, but I don't think the devs will want to do this because it will result in a lot of extra ruin IVs for downtime. I'm not sure what they could do; bringing back wyrmwaves for fester would be okay, but it would add even more of an unforgiving nature to the rotation and force you to spend energy drain/fester around Bahamut instead of dumping it with Phoenix/dreadwyrm during trick attack or the like. Maybe they could allow ruin 3 to be instant after using ruin 4 during Bahamut only. I'm not sure. Bahamut having access to egi-assaults could be okay, too, but then pet animation locks/movement interactions might become even more frustrating. I feel like Bahamut is such an awkward thing to improve right now.

Edit: I take it back. Maybe instant Bahamut spells would be a good thing. It would force aware players to dump Ruin IV charges into the remaining time of ruination before Phoenix so that they don't overcap, and make the "downtime" of summoner feel much more satisfying. We would still have the post-Phoenix downtime of hard-casting to contend with as far as minimizing ruin 2 goes (I'm looking at you, lining up ED with hard-cast DoTs), so I think this would be good maybe?

No complaints here!

I'd welcome more changes to spice up Bahamut. He has become a shell of his former self and shown up by Phoenix. There are many ideas you could go with (I personally am definitely in the crew that wants flare breath so badly on bahamut - Morn Afah anyone?!).

If the previous oGCD mechanics were found to be unintuitive, it could be better explained if re-introduced. There are conerns with the two summons being reskins if they get similar AOE/Single target and I can't really say personally if thats a good or a bad thing, but I want some new/extra bahamut tools so bad. I'm surprised we got nothing for bahamut after OGCDs were cut over say an ability like everlasting flight.

But yeah, bahamut feels a bit awkward when having to single target weave his akhmorns into an aoe pack. If outburst was instant say during his summon, we'd be able to weave with that. In fact, weaving egi assaults themselves during AOE situations doesn't feel entirely great either. Ruin 2 vs. 8 adds is not really ideal, but we do so anyway because presumably the damage from the 2 egi actions would be equivalent to the potency of an outburst or higher whilst generating us R4 stacks. If only these moves were more potent/had a higher cooldown (personally speaking).