Quote Originally Posted by Taranok View Post
I don't think the class is being punished for having a res half as badly as people think it is. The problem is the class is being punished by having a poorly designed rotation and having Devotion, and people just happen to blame res utility for some bizarre reason despite it likely being a non-factor when determining class design since players are expected to survive throughout a fight and casters can just help healers, which is mostly a prog system than anything else.

SMNs entire issue ties back to my first point though, the rotation is just bad. Pure and simple.
This pretty much. SMN's main issue is that its entire kit is comprised of separate functions staples together, with very little synergy. Unlike other jobs, nothing really plays nicely with each other, and you're actively fighting the mechanics of your own job (even canceling one of your Trances early to get to Bahamut/Phoenix faster....) to do what you need to do. The damage is there, but it does not feel good.

SMN always had decent to great damage, and excelled at group meltdowns. However, a big issue with this is how SMN does damage. SMN's damage is split between nukes, DoTs, and pets, which both works and doesn't work well depending on the encounter. A lot of fights are designed as a DPS race against an enrage counter, which promotes doing as much damage as you can - as quickly as you can. SMN has been moving slightly away from DoT (and pet) management, but it's still a big part of the job, and all of SMNs damage happens in incremental stages across different avenues. You have to work your way slowly up to max potential, then fall and do it again. It needs the nukes to be somewhat on par in function with the others, but it can't be too powerful because of the passive damage that ramps up with its DoTs and pet actions. So, SMNs get hard-gated on what they can do, depending on which stage they are at.

This all circles back to its stapled-together kit being a clunky mess with a lack of identity. It wants to be a DoT Mage, a Pet Class, a Mobile Caster, and a Burst Turret all at the same time. It's kind of hard to balance all of that on both the player and development side. SE needs to set aside some time and figure out what they want SMN to be and stick with it, instead of playing halfsies.