Quote Originally Posted by Dahlinea View Post
Separating Phoenix from FTB wouldn't extend the rotation at all. We still have to wait for 60 secs Trances CDs either way. In fact, removing Phoenix from FTB, and having a Summon Bahamut becoming Summon Phoenix in its phase, would actually make the rotation more systematical with downtimes (which would be more tight now) to jus reapply dots if necessary and throw some Ruin III's. Correcting the cooldowns of some oGCDs, SMN rotation would have as base something like "Trance phases to amass Ruin IV stacks and Aetherflow stacks then burning them during the Summoning phases".
The issue is that separating DP from FBT would actually break the rotation more, because the demi-summons feel like absolute garbage when you're not spamming constant instant casts, and it makes the rotation harder to actually execute.

Going the opposite direction, merging DB with DWT, fixes a lot of problems on DB, but reintroduces problems with EA 1 and 2, because those abilities and devotion cannot be used during any demi summon. These are problems that already exist, it would just make the problem so bad that the devs would be forced to actually fix the issue as well.

Quote Originally Posted by Mewthredel View Post

I've started to enjoy the chaotic nature of the current SMN rotation. I like that there are higher skill cap jobs, but what's the point of an incredibly high skill cap if no matter how well you play it you just aren't performing nearly as well as much easier jobs (I haven't played every class, but from what I can see SMN currently has the most complex rotation in the game)
I enjoy its chaotic nature, a little, but it's not chaotic in a good way. Bard more exemplifies chaotic in a good way than Summoner does, because it has the proc rotation down to a T compared to Summoner, which is less chaos (and obviously no procs) and more john madden. So instead of chaos, it's pure bar watching trying to understand the flow of a class that fundamentally does not flow, at all. Even Bard has a flow to it, even if it's a bit choppy.

As sad as it is to say this, outside of Contagion specifically, and to a lesser extent precasting aetherflow before pulls, Summoner had a solid flow to it in Stormblood. Contagion was bad because controlling the pet was bad to begin with, and prepull setup always sucks, but otherwise the class was pretty great.