Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[NovaBismarck]

The logs for SMN's rdps only gets lower the worse you go based on initial clears:

https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statisti...=68&dataset=50

It's important to note that these are week 1 clears and so a small swing in dps will result in large percentile differences (and its why 50th percentile bracket is not a bad choice) - For the most part however, those who are hardcore savage raiders clear the fights in week 1 and it is telling that SMN is pretty low at all percentiles on the final fight. Summoner is bottom 3 regardless of which percentile you pick.

Infact, 30th percentile and below it is the worst job for rdps at this time. There are a multitude of reasons for this and these stats are not necessarily a true depiction of how things stand as some jobs may have had gear prioritized more than others and there is a lot of luck associated who won gear on earlier floors which could bring the average up. What is telling is that RDM is higher at all percentiles. RDM clearly does not need nerfs however (if anything, it deserves more buffs). It's just telling how weak SMN is at this current time due to the current design iteration of the job and its reduced flexibility, rigid mobility timings, fester ruins and how much downtime can punish you.

The job is in a bad spot and I would very much like our cycle based on Aetherflow again as it was a great system and very underappreciated. You did not need the Aetherflow lockouts in trance either as you could simply have DWT or FBT activatable as soon as you refreshed Aetherflow meaning you could use said stacks inside DWT/FBT. Further, to distinguish DWT/FBT setup in this way, you could rename the Aetherflow mechanic to Energy Drain which makes DWT activatable on refresh and Energy Drain upgrades to Energy Siphon after you have already used Energy Drain and it is on cooldown or DWT ending which signifies that the next trance available will be FBT and so on. It would have been a very nice and straight forward improvement on the old 4.1 system. Instead we have this more rigid system which has many faults.

You are spot on. Ty.

[Siete]

I'm personally not a fan of the dot falloff issues we have now. Maybe it's an annoyance because there are so many other things to deal with during the rotation. There's quite a bit of potency loss from not having dots up and it makes for some annoying fights, ie the dungeon boss Cladoselache & Doliodus in Akadaemia Anyder where they keep swapping fairly quickly before you can reapply dots. I personally don't like it. Many of the dot falloff issues can be remedied by running content repetitively until your patterns are spot on, but I don't have issues like this playing other classes. It's not as big of an issue as the rigidity of 5.0 summoner. I'm most interested in seeing them alleviate the rigid structure and timing of the class and then streamlining it.

If not deleted they could at least make dots not incur a global cooldown, making the SMN be able to get on casting something which deals damage straight after.
Or... I don't know, make the DoTs and Egi actually hit for something?

[Tulzscha]

SALTY COMMENT INCOMING QUICK QUICK COVER YOUR EYES FAST FAST
I see so we should throw all the lore all the single arduous travel we did to make those demis out of the window . cause Sure you can reason it with enough effort but why be reasonable . i feel so bad for the devs everything they did was simply wasted . I'm done trying to give REASONING appearantely nobody liked summoner all they cared about was about bahamut going pew pew . the one caster that was supposed to be the complex one with the choice making all of it gone . Well then i hope you guys get what you want I'll play smn no matter what and ill be happy about it or so i hope after all i still think rdm is a disgrace of a rdm and it's unfun to me . but hey at least You guys will have fun wont you? and you guys will totally not complain again . because the reasonable thing makes no sense why would smn have poisons . not like the lore explains it right? Goodbye I'm done hopefully somebody else will make you reasonable instead of batshit insane.

Er I never said to get rid of the egis or dumb the class down, I said I like how the job plays (especially dots, I like me some dots) but it doesn't seem to be very cohesive, there are the summons and then there are poisons and they don't interact with each other at all. At surface level the two things don't even make sense together, hence the threads about it. And if it does make perfect sense once you dig deep enough, should you really need to dig that deep to understand why your job does what it does? Even then, lore aside the two aspects still don't work with each other mechanically. As Atamis said it doesn't feel like a summoner.

But just as an example let's say our 3 egis were made into 30s cds that last 15s, can only have one active at a time, do some flashy attack when summoned, and are just bigger with maybe more niche EA abilities - dots, heals, buffs, debuffs, whatever - maybe even get a 3rd EA and another egi to allow for this level of options and potential support. They're still there all the time but with more choice, flexibility and impactfulness. It might not be a great idea but that's what I think of when it comes to summoners - having a slew of primals you can call on to help you, picking the one right for the situation, and having it make a big effect. Not so much spamming Ruin while dots tick away, which is the vast majority of our damage output.

[HanenJS]

I really liked the summoner class. DoTs + Pets made it a fun solo adventure. I never liked the changes that came after 2.x. I was hoping they would expand the summoning list, which they sort of did, and add even more DoTs to help with overall DPS. It was always fun to see HUGE dots just draining the life away from these monsters. but now... I love the BIRD. also, FFlogs, you might want to consider how many of that information also includes dancer mechanics. I've Rarely been a target for dancing partner when there is a blm around, but i've seen my dps hit near 12-14k with dancers.

[Siete]

I really liked the summoner class. DoTs + Pets made it a fun solo adventure. I never liked the changes that came after 2.x. I was hoping they would expand the summoning list, which they sort of did, and add even more DoTs to help with overall DPS. It was always fun to see HUGE dots just draining the life away from these monsters. but now... I love the BIRD.

Huge dots? They sort of hit for nothing.

[Taranok]

it's the opposite the only way to increase the ruin dmg was to make them scale from dots. they didn't give a third dot in ruination for nothing

Or, you know, remove the DoTs from the class, make fester just always hit for 400 (if we were keeping fester at this point), and make ruin come in swinging for 270, since 70 potency happens to be the potency damage of the DoTs if you average it over 12 GCDs. Granted this is conveniently ignoring the various phase changes or even hard casting of DoTs mechanics that would need to see other spells also raised. There is no mechanic that requires having DoTs that needs to stay that way, otherwise classes like Machinist literally could not exist. The devs made a conscious choice to keep the DoTs instead of expunging them. And don't get me started on how godawful Ruination is to the current SMN rotation. 75% uptime, but 20 seconds of that is GUARANTEED to happen during a section where you gain no benefit from it, and there is no practical way to realistically mitigate that without heavy amounts of micro and perfect timing to delay when you recast it, which costs more damage anyways since you'd have to cast more normal DoTs to keep everything lined up.

I don't mind DoTs on SMN because it's what gives the job more consistent damage and mobility but I just find it annoying how 5.0 SMN revolves around it more than ever with Ruin working like Fester. It's very, very annoying and should be reverted back into raw damage.

Also I do feel DoT management is pretty annoying now because I find myself actually waiting a few seconds after my DoTs expired at certain points so I can use Tri-Disaster on CD, and this wasn't really a problem before. Personally I wish we had a more reliable way to refresh DoTs like Bard does. Also they should just add Ruination into Bio already.

I'd just like to point out that there is absolutely nothing about DoTs being on the class that makes the class innately more, or less, mobile. The only things that affect mobility are range and whether you have cast times or not. Ranged DPS are innately more mobile than melee because if a boss zones out melee, they lose a lot of damage while the rDPS just ignores the boss movement. Casters are innately the least mobile, but SMN used to be the most mobile because it would cost them 20 potency to instant cast, they had 15s of guaranteed mobility every minute, and a further 20 seconds of optimized mobility every 2 minutes. That has since been taken away which is why the class feels so much less mobile, especially because SMNs cannot let the DoTs lapse anymore or they lose substantially more damage.

[HeulGDarian]

Or, you know, remove the DoTs from the class, make fester just always hit for 400 (if we were keeping fester at this point), and make ruin come in swinging for 270, since 70 potency happens to be the potency damage of the DoTs if you average it over 12 GCDs. Granted this is conveniently ignoring the various phase changes or even hard casting of DoTs mechanics that would need to see other spells also raised. There is no mechanic that requires having DoTs that needs to stay that way, otherwise classes like Machinist literally could not exist. The devs made a conscious choice to keep the DoTs instead of expunging them. And don't get me started on how godawful Ruination is to the current SMN rotation. 75% uptime, but 20 seconds of that is GUARANTEED to happen during a section where you gain no benefit from it, and there is no practical way to realistically mitigate that without heavy amounts of micro and perfect timing to delay when you recast it, which costs more damage anyways since you'd have to cast more normal DoTs to keep everything lined up.



I'd just like to point out that there is absolutely nothing about DoTs being on the class that makes the class innately more, or less, mobile. The only things that affect mobility are range and whether you have cast times or not. Ranged DPS are innately more mobile than melee because if a boss zones out melee, they lose a lot of damage while the rDPS just ignores the boss movement. Casters are innately the least mobile, but SMN used to be the most mobile because it would cost them 20 potency to instant cast, they had 15s of guaranteed mobility every minute, and a further 20 seconds of optimized mobility every 2 minutes. That has since been taken away which is why the class feels so much less mobile, especially because SMNs cannot let the DoTs lapse anymore or they lose substantially more damage.

Well me from last night i am sorry i can't listen to your advice and not care about summoner discussion .

Ok here is the big flow of your genious idea. That assuming you keep casting on that target,So on aoe you Don't get the damage. ok i say we can put it to overburst , there are times where the mobs are split or away from the boss. Congratulations you're the owner of the second coming of ruinfesters. alot of stuff Don't work currently not just ruination we need fixing not limb removal.

[Taranok]

Well me from last night i am sorry i can't listen to your advice and not care about summoner discussion .

Ok here is the big flow of your genious idea. That assuming you keep casting on that target,So on aoe you Don't get the damage. ok i say we can put it to overburst , there are times where the mobs are split or away from the boss. Congratulations you're the owner of the second coming of ruinfesters. alot of stuff Don't work currently not just ruination we need fixing not limb removal.

Yes, because we remove dots and ruination in a vacuum instead of altering the entire class to allow for such a sweeping change.

Did you even think through your comment?

[HeulGDarian]

The same you said might as well go back to you.
You want to keep SMN in vegetative state just because you like it and just because of it's "lore", which is basically close to none? Other classes mention the reason of their skills and powers. Arcanist quests are more like Manipulante aether and... YEEHAW TACTICAL PLANNING WINS! Just that, it's far from specific at all. All the quests you do work regardless of the Arcanist's abilities because what really matters is not what you throw but how you "plan the battles".
Is that the lore you're talking about?
Perhaps you played it long ago and forgot?

No actually you would find that i don't want it in a vegetative state. That's why I've been presenting ideas that are solutions to various problem , all of them targeted so that they can be fun and more summoner like. the problem is Smn and his line up make perfect sense . You're a mage who buys time with weaker entities and other dark spells such as bio miasma and ruin, till you can get enough aether by using your aetherflow abilities transforming it into aether that will enable you to summon a stronger entity.
your summons are your biggest source of dmg both the small and the big but you yourself are still a mage so you're not useless outside of summoning.

What people say is that dots Don't fit the summoner and sometimes they will give examples of other summoner characters in the series. Taking only the summoner part and nothing else without realizing that no summoner ever was just summoning so the "TRUEST OF TRUE" summoner is just in your head. Someone wrote the lore but ill just summarise it summoning is darkness aspected magic so since to learn it we studied that we also learned ruin and bio miasma . At the shb final boss you can see the shadows also do ruin while he conjured specters . planning ahead is a necessity in order to perform the demi summon because if we die we lose all that aether and have to start all over again.

[HeulGDarian]

Yes, because we remove dots and ruination in a vacuum instead of altering the entire class to allow for such a sweeping change.

Did you even think through your comment?

so that would only work if you reworked the whole class? You would have to spend more stuff in order to make that better than the dots and you think that's a good idea?