Summoner likes and dislikes, an attempt to compilate thoughts on Summoner.

[Kassatsu]

I definitely agree with the original post. As a person who planned summoner since it was released, this is a bad place with a horrible game play feel. So bad that I leveled dnc a few days into doing ex primals.. I hope they fix it. Almost every summon I know has changed to rdm cause it’s super easy and does the same dmg

[Sequora]

I definitely agree with the original post. As a person who planned summoner since it was released, this is a bad place with a horrible game play feel. So bad that I leveled dnc a few days into doing ex primals.. I hope they fix it. Almost every summon I know has changed to rdm cause it’s super easy and does the same dmg

I couldn't agree more. I actually did MSQ on RDM because I always thought pulling a book out during the CSs looks stupid. I lvled SMN using roullettes and fates and got them to 80 at about the same time. I immediately switched to SMN and I've finally started to get the SMN rotation down, but it's still really busy. I've been doing the Ex fights, and they were initially really challenging on SMN. Even now, I feel like to perform well, I basically need to tunnel vision. I just tried doing Ex fights on RDM yesterday, and it felt like a joke. I'm not saying I want the rotation to feel as simplistic as the RDM rotation, but I feel like it needs some tweaks. I feel like progression fights will be difficult because it's going to be hard to meet DPS checks while tunnel visioning SMN rotation. It makes me sad.

[Taranok]

I couldn't agree more. I actually did MSQ on RDM because I always thought pulling a book out during the CSs looks stupid. I lvled SMN using roullettes and fates and got them to 80 at about the same time. I immediately switched to SMN and I've finally started to get the SMN rotation down, but it's still really busy. I've been doing the Ex fights, and they were initially really challenging on SMN. Even now, I feel like to perform well, I basically need to tunnel vision. I just tried doing Ex fights on RDM yesterday, and it felt like a joke. I'm not saying I want the rotation to feel as simplistic as the RDM rotation, but I feel like it needs some tweaks. I feel like progression fights will be difficult because it's going to be hard to meet DPS checks while tunnel visioning SMN rotation. It makes me sad.

Even after you get it down, it's still busy and lacks a real flow to it, which is a bigger problem than anything. I'm leveling Machinist right now and, despite the class being a hell of a lot busier, when played correctly it has a very real, solid flow to it. And the inclusion of flow makes a massive difference to how busy it feels. So it ends up feeling less busy than Summoner because it flows well, and is smooth.

Ninja, at least in HW and, to an extent, SB, also flowed well, so it never felt super busy despite literally being the highest APM class in the game. It helps that I treat a 4-step ninjutsu (from start to finish) as one action, but at the end of the day it just flows really nicely.

That's ultimately what SMN is lacking. Flow. Its AoE rotation flows about as well as a dog crashing through a screen door does, and the ST rotation flows about as well as 2 gears grinding their teeth off.

The flow is everything. When a class doesn't flow well, or the flow is artificially difficult for the sake of it (E.G. Hagakure), the flow gets choppy, rough, and difficult to follow. The more you have to improv, the worse a class feels, and SMN just feels like 'round the clock improv. Which is fine, if your class was designed around it, like Dancer (and old Machinist) were. But this one most definitely is not.

[ObsidianFire]

Lvl. 80 SMN. Have done all the Lvl. 80 Normal Content with it (Eden raids).

Likes

• All DoTs are now 30sec
• Egis are now summoned instantly
• Bane no longer requires a stack of Aetherflow
• SMN finally has a decent AoE spell to spam
• Tri-Disaster is now on a 50sec CD
• Ruination is 30sec long

Dislikes

• Doing any damage without casting DoTs first is all but impossible to do Ruin spells basically doing no damage with no DoTs on the target. This makes it really hard to do decent damage. This is also a problem with Hunt and FATE mobs that have the maximum number of DoTs on them.
• Egis have never done so little damage (i thought we were a pet class?)
• Egi Assaults do so little damage they function more as Ruin IV proc buttons then anything else
• Egi Assaults do not proc Ruin IV unless the pet lands the ability which can lead to a lot of ghosting when enemies die or leave before the attack lands
• Garuda's Slipstream goes away if she is de-spawned, particularly when a Demi is summoned
• Garuda's Slipstream cannot be spammed efficiently since there can be only one Windstorm puddle on the ground at a time
• Titan's Earthern Armor does not give Ruin IV procs
• Energy Drain and Energy Siphon are the definition of button bloat; get rid of one and make the other an AoE spell with a "does 60% damage to all other target" effect and they are effectively combined for no DPS gain
• DWT lost it's 10% damage buff and subsequently there is no reason to stay in DWT unless you have oGCDs to weave (and we do have a lot)
• Energy Drain/Sophon have to be targeted on a mob to be used
• Phoenix is a Bahamut clone as far as potencies go and how it behaves
• Bahamut and Phoenix are nothing more then a "all spells will do 120 extra potency" buffs in a pretty animation (at least when they actually get out all their "auto-attacks" on time)
• Bahamut and Phoenix can ghost on their "auto-attacks" and Enkindle moves way to easily, especially if they are moving
• Phoenix is out in FBT which would be a great place to weave Egi Assaults if an Egi could be out during FBT, which it can't since Demis cause Egis to go away an Egi Assaults to be unavailable to use
• Pet potency is 80% of player potency for Garuda, Titan, Enkindle and the Demis and 48% of player potency for Ifrit
• To may oGCDs on short CDs that don't feel impactful since they do so little damage
• No good way to weave all the AoE oGCDs in AoE situations because we have no instant cast AoE skill
• Downtime went from something SMN was very good at dealing with between Aetherflow being able to be cast with no target and DWT not being on a Cooldown to being one of the most rigid classes in the game that has no way to deal with downtime at all. This is bad given that SMN's flexability was one of the major reasons a lot of people like playing and optimizing SMN in the first place.

At the very least, I would like the pet potentiates to be show in equivalent player potentiates in-game somewhere in the game. That way maybe people could see why the pets do so little damage now. Here's what all the "real" pet potencies would look like if they were player potencies.

Garuda - 80% of player potency

• Wind Blade - 32p in AoE
• Aerial Slash - 48p in AoE
• Slipstream - 16p initially and 16p per tick for 15sec in AoE
• Aerial Blast - 280p in AoE

Titan - 80% of player potency

• Rock Buster - 48p
• Earthen Armor - 20% of target's HP
• Mountain Buster - 56p in AoE
• Earthen Fury - 180p initially and 16p per tick for 15sec in AoE

Ifrit - 48% of player potency

• Burning Strike - 38.4p
• Crimson Cyclone - 48p
• Flaming Crush - 48p in AoE
• Inferno - 160p initially and 16p per tick for 15sec in AoE

Note: Inferno is an Enkindle ability and is 80% of player potency instead of 48%

Bahamut - 80% of player potency

• Wyrmwave - 120p
• Ahk Morn - 520p to first target, 260p in AoE

Phoenix - 80% of player potency

• Everlasting Flight - 80p heal per tick for 20sec in AoE
• Scarlet Flame - 120p
• Revelation - 520p to first target, 260p in AoE

To make a very long story shot, I leveled SMN to 80, did the content with it and decided never to play it again until something about its rotation changes because of how bad it was. It didn't help either that playing SMN for long periods of time made by hands ache with how busy it was as a class. I've played SMN since I started playing this game in 3.2 and this is the time to call it quits for me. I have never seen so sloppy of a class rotation in this game as this one. And yes, that is taking 4.0 SMN into account.

Whoever said that 5.0 SMN feels like three different people all came up with their own systems of how to fix SMN and didn't communicate with each other how those systems would work together hit the nail on the head.

[Taranok]

One correction, Titan is 48/50% scaling, not 80%. It's objectively the worst pet outright.

[Trensharo]

Two biggest issues would be :

1) Loss of Titan as a tank has rendered this class nearly unusuable in the open world. I died to a FATE in Lakeland because I did one AOE spell and got all the agro and no way to heal. Titan's shield is useless. Physic is useless.

2) Way too many buttons! For AOE, you have 7 buttons : Outburst, Painflare, Bane, Deathflare, the AOE energy drain, Garuda's 2 Egi Assaults. That is just too many.

Completely noticeable when trying to do some quests, like those "fight in a ring for 12 rounds." If you end up taking too much damage you can fall completely behind the encounter, because you spend all of your time trying to Physik up, and your DPCT is too low (compared to, e.g. a BLM or even a RDM). That was okay when you had a pet that could rip agro off and allow you to free cast for 5+ seconds. It's not the same with this weak shield and having to literally tank everything. The whole point of playing a Summoner was that you didn't have to do that - otherwise, BLM and RDM are WAY better - as they "blow stuff up" more reliably/faster in this kind of content. Also, Vercure is actually good.

-----

People are acting like Ruin gets 80% of its potency from the DoT... Please stop these exaggerations about it "basically doing no damage without DoTs on the MOB." That's utterly silly.

The mechanic is awful, but... seriously.

[Nyoraii]

People are acting like Ruin gets 80% of its potency from the DoT... Please stop these exaggerations about it "basically doing no damage without DoTs on the MOB." That's utterly silly.

The mechanic is awful, but... seriously.

Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 80.
Additional Effect: If target is suffering from a Bio or Miasma effect inflicted by you, Ruin potency is increased to 130 for one effect, or 180 for both

If 180 is the baseline, you lose about 55% of your potency using Ruin on a target without dots
Also most of the DPS of the Summoner comes from Ruins, so yeah, that's a major loss of DPS.

[Trensharo]

I couldn't agree more. I actually did MSQ on RDM because I always thought pulling a book out during the CSs looks stupid. I lvled SMN using roullettes and fates and got them to 80 at about the same time. I immediately switched to SMN and I've finally started to get the SMN rotation down, but it's still really busy. I've been doing the Ex fights, and they were initially really challenging on SMN. Even now, I feel like to perform well, I basically need to tunnel vision. I just tried doing Ex fights on RDM yesterday, and it felt like a joke. I'm not saying I want the rotation to feel as simplistic as the RDM rotation, but I feel like it needs some tweaks. I feel like progression fights will be difficult because it's going to be hard to meet DPS checks while tunnel visioning SMN rotation. It makes me sad.

The RDM rotation isn't really that "simplistic," though, it's just intuitive. There is still enough going on in there, and some decision making actually built into it - unlike SMN. IMO, BLM has a simpler rotation than RDM.

[Trensharo]

If 180 is the baseline, you lose about 55% of your potency using Ruin on a target without dots
Also most of the DPS of the Summoner comes from Ruins, so yeah, that's a major loss of DPS.

Most?

Keeping your DoTs up on a DoT class is pretty 101, anyways. That Ruin mechanic is ignorable.

Personally, I think the combat system and encounter design is more of a problem for summoners than festerruins, because that is what is exposing some of the bad class design in this class (trying to line things up to certain raid buffs, phases, etc.). Also, if you don't clip or let the DoTs drop, you aren't going to lose much DPS anyways. The gains from doing that kind of maniacal optimization are not much.

Arthas basically facerolled on his summoner the other day and still did about 9.5K DPS.

[Dyvid]

I think the two biggest issues with SMN right now is pet damage and timers. Even if/when they fix Egi damage, 100 potency is still very weak. It is basically a 400 potency attack every 60s? Enkindle is 300 every 120s? Needs a buff.

As for timers, it seems 30s is the go to number that everything is divisible by so it would make sense to balance the jobs action around this. SMN also has a 120s rotation so it should also balance around this. As many of you know the HW and SB rotation was based on DWT and AF usage to get there. The question is does the community want a build up to Trance or would you prefer that they are unlock at the start? If it is a buildup than I would propose something like this.

• ED/ES has two charges with 30s recast timer. Aetherflow has a max stack of 4 rather than 2. This means you can build up to 4 stacks per 60s and not be as punishing if you use ED/ES while you have one or two stacks left.

• Next I would suggest that Egi Assault I and Egi Assault II use Aetherflow as a resource rather than Fester and Painflare. Recast timer would be 5s or 10s? After you use four aetherflows, trance is unlocked.

• At level 70, Demi-Bahamut would be summoned when you go into second DWTrance similar to FBT and Demi-Phoenix. There will be a new trait that +% procs based on spell casting that changes the next Wyrmwave to Gigaflare.

• Fester and Painflare would now be on a 20s OGCD ability that share the same timer. (Note: the damage from not having a fourth can be added to EG1 & EGII)

• Devotion timer lowered to 120s recast.