SMN 5.1 Job adjustments

[AdamWarlocke]

Wrong. The issue is that Physic DOES scale like Scholars. It scales off mind, not int, and summoners after level 50 don't get any mind.

Yeah, the class is that screwy.

That still doesn't make me all the way wrong since you basically already confirmed that no longer scales PAST lvl 50 due to a "change of internal mechanic". SE should've retooled Physik into ANOTHER heal ability that scales off of INT at that point then like "Physik II" or something that switches the skill into a new mechanic like how other SMN abilities get upgrades as they level. If I have to make a guess, Physik is probably one of the OLDER abilities that never get a numeral upgrade for SMN'rs.

WTB a complete SMN redesign/overhaul.

[Rambleon]

Phsyx is still trash and heals for less than 900/gcd
Bane still reduces dot damage to 60%
Previous pet casted abilities are now on the GCD......
Aetherpack still requires an EGI... and can wiff.. and still takes ages for the pet to decide to cast it
Titan armor still requires 1) a target 2) wasted GCD to summon titan, 3) a charge, and now 4) another GCD to entice titan to cast it...
Enkindle can still wiff
Bahamut still moves instead of casting waves

Overall the class went backwards for some minor potency increases.

lol, I forgot we have a heal. I removed it from my hotbars completely and it was so long ago I had forgotten we even had one. That's just a sad waste of a skill.

[Kiteless]

So you can't start fights with Egi Assault. This is really annoying.

Dreadwyrm Trance is hilariously pointless. This is really annoying.

Nothing really flows, and everything just feels sloppy.

Egis need to go, Dreadwyrm trance needs to go; hell, you could even get rid of aetherflow at this point. It's clear that none of this works, and just as clear that the dev team has no interest in making it work.

Just rework the class around summoning temporary demi-primals. Those at least feel cool, even if they're a touch clunky at the moment.

[AdamWarlocke]

So you can't start fights with Egi Assault. This is really annoying.

Dreadwyrm Trance is hilariously pointless. This is really annoying.

Nothing really flows, and everything just feels sloppy.

Egis need to go, Dreadwyrm trance needs to go; hell, you could even get rid of aetherflow at this point. It's clear that none of this works, and just as clear that the dev team has no interest in making it work.

Just rework the class around summoning temporary demi-primals. Those at least feel cool, even if they're a touch clunky at the moment.

I REALLY would like to agree you since it seems they're going in that direction, except I can't see SE going the extra mile to RE-DO arcanist from the ground up since egis are hard-baked into the leveling quests - most especially where the quest specifically tells you to USE your egi for some specific tasks. One of the ways SE pretty much FAILED when they got rid of enmity from pets - especially TANKING PETS - is that it broke the damn quest when after you first get your first tanking pet and the quest tells you to SEND IT AHEAD OF YOU to grab aggro - but instead all of it goes straight to you - I know, I checked. Everything is now on a downward slant with how it's clunkier than ever. They may as well just get rid of SMN (because SE has zero idea on how to fix it) and leave SCH the hell alone, and maybe actually make an original pet using class from the ground up.

At this point, they should just make SMN a straight up caster version of MCH and make each spell cast fill a gauge to summon demis - end of story.

[Kiteless]

I wouldn't mind having SMN trances operate sort of like MCH's meter, but a little more front and centre for the entire playstyle.

Basically, press a trance button, and a timer starts and your meter pops up. Demi primal pops out, starts showing off as it sets up a big flashy attack, oldschool summon animation style. Your skills get primal-infused bonuses, and using them fills the meter. When the timer runs out, the meter is drained, the demi-primal throws out a huge, flashy attack with potency or effects enhanced by the amount of meter filled, and then you move on to your next trance.

Or, you know, do literally anything. Just not what we have now.

[AdamWarlocke]

I wouldn't mind having SMN trances operate sort of like MCH's meter, but a little more front and centre for the entire playstyle.

Basically, press a trance button, and a timer starts and your meter pops up. Demi primal pops out, starts showing off as it sets up a big flashy attack, oldschool summon animation style. Your skills get primal-infused bonuses, and using them fills the meter. When the timer runs out, the meter is drained, the demi-primal throws out a huge, flashy attack with potency or effects enhanced by the amount of meter filled, and then you move on to your next trance.

Or, you know, do literally anything. Just not this.

I very much like that idea: having a MCH-like trance gauge PER "egi/demi" for different effects with a 20-30 second field time and 50-60 second recast time EACH with its own solo cooldown kinda like a bard's song so you can summon any one of your choice.

Now if only SE would actually LISTEN... then that's a different matter entirely.

[dinnertime]

While I like the Egi Assault changes, they really do feel awkward in SMN's current gameplay design. They don't seem like a good fit with 5.0 SMN. It would fit a lot better with 4.x and below style SMN because it requires buildup for Dreadwyrm Trance which gives you time to use all of your Egi Assault stacks, but I guess now I just skip Dreadwyrm Trance entirely for my opener so I can dump all the Egi Assault stacks? That and Dreadwyrm Trance not having synergy with Egi Assault really does feel weird. A lot of SMN abilities just don't flow well after the 5.0 rework.

Honestly almost everything about SMN felt awkward after they scrapped Aetherflow and Aethertrail. They should just bring it back already.

[Flay_wind]

Tried out new SMN. Somehow it feels worse and more awkward. Double weaving is gone, since there's pretty much nothing left to weave. DWT is "just why?" at this point. New pet damage is good and EA and EA II feel impactful, but now Ruin III is "cast this when you have nothing better to do".
Bahamut and Phoenix still think they need to stay glued to me all the time, and that's bad.

[Kiteless]

I very much like that idea: having a MCH-like trance gauge PER "egi/demi" for different effects with a 20-30 second field time and 50-60 second recast time EACH with its own solo cooldown kinda like a bard's song so you can summon any one of your choice.

Now if only SE would actually LISTEN... then that's a different matter entirely.

In fact, by compartmentalizing elements of the Job's playstyle to individual trances, you can deal with aspects like raid utility without compromising its performance as a whole.

For example, imagine a Titan trance that did lower DPS, while also having its big flashy finisher (and potentially the abilities used to fill the meter) debuffing enemy damage output or buffing allies' resilience. Instead of being a single buff/debuff skill, but rather a 20-second trance, its utilization would provide a suitable penalization to damage output in exchange for the added utility, while also being optional in its usage, meaning the SMN's overall damage output and viability at higher levels of play wouldn't have to be compromised.

[Akimitsu]

I don't understand how they manage to keep making the job worse, but somehow they manage to do it. CDs don't line up, as someone mentionned, Devotion comes up after Phoenix trance... DWT is even more useless than before. I'm sometimes left waiting for the egis to actually use EAs and pop the Ruin 4 procs just to move on with demi summoning... This job just fights itself. I suggest whoever is in charge of SMN gameplay at Square takes some lessons from any other job gameplay designer (except MNK). The job needs to be reworked.