Am I doing SMN wrong or is there just a LOT to do?

[Roda]

I honestly would've bet that SMN was gonna get a passive for "if out of combat for X seconds, automatically get aetherflow III" with an internal cooldown and where X < 10 seconds. as a quality of life...

[Dyvid]

First the problem with decrease oGCDS mean we have to lose something, and place it somewhere else. If that is okay with everyone then we can move forward.

Currently the oGCDs equal 5 every 30s; Energy Drain, Fester X 2, EA1 and EA2. Sorry but EA charges doesn't negate the fact they are 30s recast timers. Clearly SE saw how the community handled 4.0 Demi-Bahamut Phase and thought that is what people enjoyed.

Next Trance doesn't have as a progressive rotation like 4.0 did. I believe this more than anything is throwing everyone off their game. 4.0 was AF > ______, ______, _____ > DWT > AF > ______, ______, ______> DWT > Demi-B
5.0 is now DWT > Demi-B > FBT+Demi-P.

So if people do want oGCDs cut down while playing similar to 4.1 here is my feedback.

1) Dreadwyrm Trance - Increase Egi Damage by 15%.
Additional Effect: Reduces spell casting time by 2.5 seconds
Additional Effect: Resets Tri-disaster recast timer
Additional Effect: Changes Ruin III to Fester and Outburst to Painflare.
Additional Effect: Upon end, unlock Dreadwyrm Trance II
Duration: 20s
Recast time: 40s

2) Dreadwyrm Trance II - Summons Demi-Bahamut to fight by your side. Each time you cast a spell on an enemy, Demi-Bahamut will execute Wyrmwave on the same target.
Additional Effect: Reduces spell casting time by 2.5 seconds
Additional Effect: Resets Tri-disaster recast timer
Additional Effect: Changes Ruin III to Fester and Outburst to Painflare.
Additional Effect: Upon end, unlock Firebird Trance
Duration: 20s
Recast time: 40s

3) Firebird Trance - Summons Demi-Phoenix to fight by your side, which executes Everlasting Flight as it manifests. Each time you cast a spell on an enemy, Demi-Phoenix will execute Scarlet Flame on the same target.
Additional Effect: Reduces spell casting time by 2.5 seconds
Additional Effect: Resets Tri-disaster recast timer
Additional Effect: Changes Ruin III to Fountain of Fire and Outburst to Brand of Purgatory
Duration: 20s
Recast time: 40s

4) Energy Drain / Energy Siphon would now have a maximum charge of 2 Aetherflow would have a maximum of 4 stack rather than two.

5) Egi Assault will now consume Aetherflow stacks.

6) Egi Assault 1 changes
-Crimson Cyclone deals fire damage with a potency of 200. Charges at enemy (Gap
Closer)
-Aerial Slash deals wind damage with a potency of 100 to target and all enemies nearby
it.

7) Egi Assault 2 Changes
-Flaming Crush Deals fire damage with a potency of 100 to target.
Additional Effect: Fire damage over time
Potency: 15
Duration: 30s
-Slipstream deals wind damage with a potency of 40 to target and all enemies nearby it.
Additional Effect: Creates a windstorm centered around the target, dealing damage to any enemies who enter
Potency: 15
Duration: 30s

8) Enkindle Changes
-Aerial Blast Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 400 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
-Inferno deals fire damage with a potency of 500 to target.

These changes are radical but will give a more understandable progression of trance in the form that one build to another and then another; DWT > DWT+Demi-B > FBT +DemiP. It lowers oGCDs from 10 to 6 every 60s while keeping all skills and their dps. It adds more dps weight to Egi and rewards players for actually pushing the added buttons. Obviously potency number would require changing to balance it all out

These are idea and personally I don't even know if I would like it. The goal was to make a workable Trance system, reduce oGCDs, and make Egi Action do the dps they deserve.

[Taranok]

I don't think putting SMN on a 40 second timer is the best choice, nor is bringing it back to the days of having trances with no summons. Fights operate on 30/60/120/180m timers typically, and SMN not being on the 60s timer with its primary rotation will cause more problems than it solves. That said, I 100% fully believe DB should be rolled into DWT at the very least, and merging Fester and Painflare directly into the rotation is an interesting choice that would solve the Aetherflow issue.

But it causes the problem of lower level SMN being a lot weaker and that would need to be solved as well.

Also, DoTs on pets are a bad idea, esp. 30s DoTs, since it means your opener will clip. The current Garuda AoE rotation has the same problem with egi-shadowflare clipping itself if cast within 15 seconds, as well. That said, I'm all for the egi having more damage in the short term so EA feels better.

[BWise0713]

Like everyone else has said, it is pretty busy. Once you get used to it though it’s easy to go with the flow. I’ve mained SMN for 6 years almost now from back to the 2.0 days. EVERY expansion so far has required me to setup my hotbar a different way or learn different ways of doing things. It’ll come in time.

[Dyvid]

I don't think putting SMN on a 40 second timer is the best choice, nor is bringing it back to the days of having trances with no summons. Fights operate on 30/60/120/180m timers typically, and SMN not being on the 60s timer with its primary rotation will cause more problems than it solves. That said, I 100% fully believe DB should be rolled into DWT at the very least, and merging Fester and Painflare directly into the rotation is an interesting choice that would solve the Aetherflow issue.

But it causes the problem of lower level SMN being a lot weaker and that would need to be solved as well.

Also, DoTs on pets are a bad idea, esp. 30s DoTs, since it means your opener will clip. The current Garuda AoE rotation has the same problem with egi-shadowflare clipping itself if cast within 15 seconds, as well. That said, I'm all for the egi having more damage in the short term so EA feels better.

Actually, it already is on a 40s timer, people just don't know it XD DWT, Demi-B, FBT are all there in a 120s rotation. 120 divided by 3 equals 40s. This just improves the flow of the rotation dividing up the downtime evenly. As far as DoTs' for 30s, well you get 2 EA1 and 2 EA2 in 60s as of now. EA2 has a recast of 30s. So you have the option to keep that DoT 100% of the time. The goal it is to keep track and not clip or you can push your dps to unlock ruin IV faster. As I stated though, this isn't my personal choice however but and option to meet some of the concerns I see on the boards.

Personally I would do like to see the following:
-Reduce DWT/FBT recast time to 45s or 50s
-Give Energy Drains two charges and allow 4 stacks of Aetherflow
-Increase the damage of Egi Assaults as stated above.
-Increase the radius of Slipstream's Gale Enforcer ground targeting
-Increase Outburst to 80 potency
-Increase Energy Siphon to 60
-Add Egi DPS boost to DWT
-Add an additional effect to Demi-Bahamut that spells have a % chance to upgrade Wyrmwave to Flare or add back the option that actions cause wyrmwave.

[Taranok]

Except that each individual thing being on a 40s cycle means that you're not going to have Trances up for Trick Attack for 2 of them. That's my point. Each individual rotation being on 40s means 2 of every 3 major burst window of the class is off the 60s timer, and that doesn't work well for how abilities are designed. Furthermore, that would just be absolute pandemonium for Devotion and its timing, since it's already bad in how it fits into the rotation.

[Sequora]

I’ll be honest, I’m having a pretty hard time learning the SMN rotation at 80. I played SMN in 2.0, and in 3.0 I technically played, but some real life stuff prevented me from endgame. In 4.0 I decided to make the jump to RDM, which felt like refreshing.

With the addition of Phoenix, I really wanted to get back to my roots. That being said it’s a really complicated job. The opener is absolutely insane. So many timers to keep track of. I feel like once you’ve weaves in the egi assaults it calms down a bit, and the trance periods help, but between trances we have a lot to do.

I think some small changes they could make:

Double the potency of egi assault 1 + 2, increase their recast timers to 1 min each, but also double the damage and have them each give 2 ruin IVs.

Roll summon Bahamut into DWT so it feels more similar to Phoenix.

Increase the timer of energy drain to 1 min and have it give us 4 Aetherflow stacks.

These small changes would help with the oGCD bloat a little bit

[Angry_Evil]

With the addition of Phoenix, I really wanted to get back to my roots. That being said it’s a really complicated job. The opener is absolutely insane. So many timers to keep track of. I feel like once you’ve weaves in the egi assaults it calms down a bit, and the trance periods help, but between trances we have a lot to do.

With how many timers summoner is managing I think they should rename it to chronomancer LOL people wanted time mage for a long time - here it is.

[Dyvid]

Except that each individual thing being on a 40s cycle means that you're not going to have Trances up for Trick Attack for 2 of them. That's my point. Each individual rotation being on 40s means 2 of every 3 major burst window of the class is off the 60s timer, and that doesn't work well for how abilities are designed. Furthermore, that would just be absolute pandemonium for Devotion and its timing, since it's already bad in how it fits into the rotation.

It's never a good idea to design one job around another. If we added DWT and Demi-Bahamut, kept the 20s duration with 60s recast time you would have over 40s of filler after each Trance. That is a long time

[Taranok]

It's never a good idea to design one job around another. If we added DWT and Demi-Bahamut, kept the 20s duration with 60s recast time you would have over 40s of filler after each Trance. That is a long time

That might be correct, except that it also coincidentally coincides with boss mechanics as well. The only classes that ever operated on an odd timer are Tank and Healer because tank busters preferred 40s mechanics, and if your goal is to design the class such that it cannot play nice with other people, ever, then a good way to do it is to take it off the 60s timer. BLM is a bit mushroom in this regard as well because it doesn't have a timer, merely a variable speed rotation that outputs relatively consistent damage. Every other class operates on multiples of 30, 60, 120, and 180 seconds, and intentionally designing a class outside that doesn't help the class, it hurts it.