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

[Dyvid]

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.

Well if this is the case the the best course of action would be to break up Trances and Demi rather than combining them. You would have a 20s trance, 20s Demi phase, 20s downtime.

[Taranok]

The demis feel vastly, vastly better when you use them with instant cast spells, so the demis should be combined with the trances, not spread out more.

[Nyoraii]

Thinking about it, having Phoenix and Bahamut work like Bunshin from Ninja inside the trances would be really cool and would solve the problem of them moving while they should be dpsing.

Also I'd suggest that if your trance ends and you haven't casted Akh Morn yet, then Bahamut should use it on your target (if you have one) before disappearing.

[Taranok]

Not having played or seen how the new Bunshin skill on Ninja works...uh, how does it work exactly?

[Dyvid]

The demis feel vastly, vastly better when you use them with instant cast spells, so the demis should be combined with the trances, not spread out more.

Agree but the point i'm making here is if Trance recast time is 60s and duration is 20s, what do we do to fill the 40s in between trances? It's would be basically the gap you feel after FBT until DWT is back up.

Now if you separated Demi from Trance it would 20s Trance, 20s Demi, 20s filler. Now Demi feel blah so I would suggest SE add my idea of a spell proc that would upgrade wyrmwave to gigaflare. Or another option would be to tie Egi Assault 1 & 2 to order Demi to do a different attack; Demi summon would refresh one stack of EA1 & EA2

Thinking about it, having Phoenix and Bahamut work like Bunshin from Ninja inside the trances would be really cool and would solve the problem of them moving while they should be dpsing.

Also I'd suggest that if your trance ends and you haven't casted Akh Morn yet, then Bahamut should use it on your target (if you have one) before disappearing.

This is basically how Demi's work. Each time we cast a spell, the Primal will cast attack. The difference was in 4.0 it was any action so we would weave spells and abilities to maximize Primal attacks. ShB changed it to only spells which is 2.5 GCD.

Bunshin

[Taranok]

Agree but the point i'm making here is if Trance recast time is 60s and duration is 20s, what do we do to fill the 40s in between trances? It's would be basically the gap you feel after FBT until DWT is back up.

Now if you separated Demi from Trance it would 20s Trance, 20s Demi, 20s filler. Now Demi feel blah so I would suggest SE add my idea of a spell proc that would upgrade wyrmwave to gigaflare. Or another option would be to tie Egi Assault 1 & 2 to order Demi to do a different attack; Demi summon would refresh one stack of EA1 & EA2

This is basically how Demi's work. Each time we cast a spell, the Primal will cast attack. The difference was in 4.0 it was any action so we would weave spells and abilities to maximize Primal attacks. ShB changed it to only spells which is 2.5 GCD.

EA or Aetherflow. Choose one, discard the other, and just have a mildly repetitive rotation during points of downtime mixed with intense points of slightly busier things that are cool and flashy. Spice it up with RNG mechanics like the old Ruin 4. Having a rotation that's boring at points is actually fine. There is nothing wrong with a class being boring at times, the idea is to just give you enough to do for it to not be monotonous. I mean, I consider the 1-2-3 combos of tanks to be more monotonous than spamming ruin 3 all the time because, eventually, the SMN will have something more interesting to do, whereas tank rotations typically never got that interesting to begin with.

And I mean, one could argue that BLM is the most boring class of all because its rotation is so simplistic and boring, but honestly, sometimes it's fun to not have to think about an overly complicated rotation for significant chunks of it only to then go back to a complicated rotation.

Though personally I'd find a way to work Demi primals into the rotation more. Why have 20 seconds of demi primals when you could have 30 seconds?! But seriously, we can have more simplistic moments in the rotation as long as something breaks it up, and RNG procs is a good way to break it up.

Also, as far as I am concerned, the old Demi-Primal system working by every action, including oGCDs, was an oversight by the devs that was never intended for the class. However, they can also just find ways to make demi summons more interesting to begin with. Summon them with trances exclusively, they auto-summon from trances, and give us more to do than spam 1 or 2 GCDs and enkindle a laser beam. Why can't we tell Bahamut to breathe fire on the target? Why can't we tell Bahamut to do dive bombs? Hell, why is Wyrmwave tied to the GCD anyways, just let us play with the summon with oGCDs.

Then create unique versions of it for phoenix and, I don't know, consider mixing it in different combos instead of the same "Enkindle twice."

As I've said before, no one will care if the rotation is boring at points if at other points it's awesome. People want to feel like they're controlling summons, but people want to have actual summons, not the awful egis that have never felt like summons whatsoever.

In an ideal smn world, we'd literally just be rotating demi-summons endlessly with maybe a 10-15s cooldown between them, but we don't live in that world yet unfortunately.

[Nyoraii]

Agree but the point i'm making here is if Trance recast time is 60s and duration is 20s, what do we do to fill the 40s in between trances? It's would be basically the gap you feel after FBT until DWT is back up.

Now if you separated Demi from Trance it would 20s Trance, 20s Demi, 20s filler. Now Demi feel blah so I would suggest SE add my idea of a spell proc that would upgrade wyrmwave to gigaflare. Or another option would be to tie Egi Assault 1 & 2 to order Demi to do a different attack; Demi summon would refresh one stack of EA1 & EA2

This is basically how Demi's work. Each time we cast a spell, the Primal will cast attack. The difference was in 4.0 it was any action so we would weave spells and abilities to maximize Primal attacks. ShB changed it to only spells which is 2.5 GCD.

Bunshin

Yeah... the pet would not be visible unless you casted something and it procced his attack, he would appear beside you (like a jojo stand) and use his Wyrmwave, then disappear.

I mean, pet's aren't even targetable anymore, it's not like you're losing anything by having them not take a huge chunk of your screen anymore, and there could be a cool visual that the SMN is tranced to Bahamut like an aetheric wing.

Having said that, I'd love it if they removed egis to implement demis/trances for other summons, changing SMNs basic spells and having a Finisher like Hellfire/Akh Morn/Diamond Dust for each Summon/Trance.

And also, when you're tranced, instead of having the summon do something when you cast ruin, have ruin be changed into a spell that commands the summon to attack.

For example: Hellfire Trance -> Ruin turns into Meteor Strike, Outburst turns into Scorched Earth.
When you cast them, instead of them coming from the summoner, Ifrit would appear beside the Summoner and cast them.

It would be like the classic FF SMN, you could even get rid of Bio and Miasma.

[Kiteless]

Messed around with SMN and MCH at level 70 against some training dummies, and it really feels like night and day. While I like the complexity of SMN on paper, and you can get some decent (not great, but decent) numbers, there's just so much you have to be doing at once, so much you have to keep up with. In practical applications, you're just going to lose too much with little payoff when it comes time to actually do stuff in a fight. The complete lack of mobility only makes things worse in that regard. When the rotation flows, it feels good, but there's just too many speedbumps that kill the flow.

Egi Assault is the biggest offender here. Both versions need to go.

[Alsandair_Sloan]

Yes i couldn't agree more! Everyone just needs to practice it and maintain adequate Sps

[Alsandair_Sloan]

No this is exactly what it is meant to be I believe. Im having trouble maintaining and is the last thing i need to work on. Ruination governs the rotation for maximizing dps.