Smn Rework Suggestions After LL

[rewd]

This seems like such a half-assed rework and it's sad.

First of all, the problem of SMN having more identities still persists. What are we now? Channelers? Trance mages? Geomancers? Elementalists? Pokemon trainers?
Why do we summon creatures that leave after a big attack, creatures that stay with us for a while and a creature that stays with us until we tell it to get lost? A creature that can only cast a buff and a shield and mainly looks menacingly at the enemy, while we exercise wind, fire and earth magic?

Aetherflow managed to 1) still be in the game 2) still be bloated for no reason (how did Energy Siphon and Painflare managed to survive?) 3) completely disconnected from everything. Ruin IV is even worse. What was a flexible tool and an important part of SMN's kit, is now just a GCD every minute.

5.X SMN is very mobile, but movement doesn't come for free and you still have to correctly manage Assaults and Ruin procs. Now, we have even more instacasts than we can possibly use. On top of that, we can also use Ruin III to weave pretty much every time we want... But where are the oGCDs to weave?

Demis lost some interaction with the player and now the only thing that makes them different from LS and Queen is Enkindle. The silver lining is that Bahamut phase looks visually cooler and that Phoenix got a new skill, which seems to be a party heal. Hopefully it's worth using and an oGCD.

The primals phases are quite disappointing. The model themselves and the ultimate moves are very cool, what comes afterwards not so much. Garuda and Titan look very basic with some generic windballs and rocks. Ifrit on the other hand looks more interesting, but that's it.

All in all, while looking good, this rework just seems like a pretty big downgrade to me. I love SMN because it's a pretty active job with a lot to manage and quite versatile. I don't really see much of it, if at all, in the new version.

I feel like they could have tried to implement current elements in the 6.0 version, like linking Garuda to your DoTs again. One skill could have applied DoTs, another skill could have spread them across targets. This way, DoTs would still be part of the job but they wouldn't be a core mechanic (think of NIN's Shadow Fang). It would have kept the fun elements of putting DoTs on everything in dungeons and it would have kept room for optimization in raids during add phases. Lastly, it would have added more oomph to Garuda. Add something similar to Ifrit and Titan and this rework would have looked much better to me.

They took a lot without giving anything in return. In a way it's poetic, since it's what happened to SCH in Shadowbringers. Was it just a matter of time for SMN?