Smn Rework Suggestions After LL

[Dyvid]

This is correct. Once you use DWT/Demi Bahamut, you are not obligated to use any of the Semi Demis/ Egi Jewels. Demi Pheonix/FBT is on a cool down. However, not using them is a notable DPS loss (probably) and by Roda's assessment since the Semi Demi's have limited charges, ideally you'll want to cycle through all of them before Phoenix is up. Which is what I think Roda was getting at.

Seems odd though considering a few factors. Let's assume Ifrit is the strongest Stance. Bahamut (15s) > Fire Stance (30s) > ???? Now the question is which carries more DPS; Phoenix vs either Wind or Earth Stance. If Phoenix is better, then your non movement rotation would be Bahamut > Fire Stance > Phoenix > Fire Stance > Bahamut. Now if Wind and Earth stance are stronger than Demi, then yes you would want to use all three before moving on... maybe. If Fire stance is the strongest wouldn't you want to try and have it ready at all times which would mean you want to recharge it every 45s; Demi.

Yeah, thats the point of failure outside of regular dropped gcds, and cooldown drift. They flat out stated in the LL that if you don't use all your summons and their gem spells / extra action in between your trances, then you will "not be doing very much damage"

True but we know that players can find ways to maximize things the devs never imagined.

It would have been nice if they would have had the media tour last week so help cut down on a lot of speculation.

[Roda]

Seems odd though considering a few factors. Let's assume Ifrit is the strongest Stance. Bahamut (15s) > Fire Stance (30s) > ???? Now the question is which carries more DPS; Phoenix vs either Wind or Earth Stance. If Phoenix is better, then your non movement rotation would be Bahamut > Fire Stance > Phoenix > Fire Stance > Bahamut. Now if Wind and Earth stance are stronger than Demi, then yes you would want to use all three before moving on... maybe. If Fire stance is the strongest wouldn't you want to try and have it ready at all times which would mean you want to recharge it every 45s; Demi.

"fire stance" is not 30s, its 2 2.8s casted gcds within that 30 seconds (so really 5.6s, or 5.3s if you swiftcast one of them) and 2 instant gcds before you cast another summon spell. If you just cast ifrit and no other summons before phoenix, then you are losing dps for ~30 seconds while your demi trance cools down.

[Dyvid]

"fire stance" is not 30s, its 2 2.8s casted gcds within that 30 seconds (so really 5.6s, or 5.3s if you swiftcast one of them) and 2 instant gcds before you cast another summon spell. If you just cast ifrit and no other summons before phoenix, then you are losing dps for ~30 seconds while your demi trance cools down.

Ah, I was just watching the LL and a lot of that info was covered up my his HUD setting. Sorry but I was assuming it was like trance phases were you had a set timer to spam your spells.

[Exodus-E]

I would have seen it like that.

Sum bahamut>Garuda-Titan-ifrit.

Sum phoenix>Ramuh-Shiva-Leviathan

The power is the same. Only the glam changes.

Or they could simply allow us to change what "jewels" we want through Egi glamours.
That could be perfectly feasible during 6.X (if they ever get around to completing it).

[Baxcel]

They should replace Phoenix with Alexander.

Why do we need a fire bird, when we got Ifrit already?

Because Pheonix is the opposite of Bahamut in this game.. Bahamut represents death, destruction and fear as shown by the calamity and the fear his resurrection brought including his shade in Lunar..

Where as Pheonix is life, revival and hope.. given to those still on the battlefield when Granpa Lui faced Bahamut in the end.. an again in the coils.. pheonix is more a light representation to the dark shadow given by Bahamut

Least that's how I think of it ^^;;

[Tulzscha]

In case anyone hasn't seen it yet: https://youtu.be/TPbS4L-sLU8 Shows the skills but not in rotation.

Also: https://discord.com/channels/1004639...58839005741056 Notes from the live letter, details some but not all of SMN's skills. They mention Outburst while the ability showcase says it's replaced by Tri-Disaster, there will probably be more changes.

Looks like Gem Shine and Gem Brilliance may be Egi Assault replacements which change based on which summon is used, Brilliance is aoe and I assume Shine is single target.

Tri-Disaster replaces Outburst, maybe.

Energy Drain (and probably Siphon) enables Ruin 4 in addition to granting Aetherflow, not sure how many charges we'll get or if Ruin 2 still exists but it has a 1 min cd up from 30s. Ruin 4 is an aoe now so it might replace Tri-Disaster/Outburst.

Fester and Painflare are still the Aetherflow spenders and seem even more out of place than before.

We still have our raid buff through Carbuncle. Our defensive also comes from Carbuncle but rather than a shield it reduces dmg by 20% for 30s - 2 charges on a 60s cd (up from Titan's 30s shield). We still have our raise and still have Physick, dunno if it'll be useful or not. Apparently we were very close to losing our raise, who knows maybe we will end up losing it.

It's hard to tell what the full rotation will be like but each summon gives resources (aether) we'll want to spend before summoning the next as well as other abilities, or modifications to abilities.

Garuda: 4 aether, persistent ground aoe + 2 aether spenders
Titan: 4 aether, 2 aether spenders + instant filler?
Ifrit: 2 aether, 2 long cast time aether spenders + gap closer + melee attack

Looks like each summon probably has a single target and aoe spender and each summon has a timer which disappears after the aether is spent but at least with Ifrit we still have access to the gap closer and melee attack after the aether is spent. From the live letter: summoning Ifrit gives indefinite access (or until you summon something else) to Crimson Cyclone which is the gap closer; Garuda has the same wording for Slipstream (the persistent ground aoe); Titan apparently has no equivalent ability.

Bahamut and Phoenix specify Ruin and Outburst changing to other abilities, the other summons do not. Chances are we'll be spamming some Ruin 3s in between summons after the aether is spent.

Ruin 3 appears to have a shorter cast time? It's unclear which instants are gcd and ogcd, if Ruin 3 has a short cast time then most instants are likely ogcd.

It looks like Bahamut and Phoenix enable the use of the other 3 summons. No Trance, we just open with Bahamut > 3 summons > Phoenix > 3 summons > repeat.

It doesn't look like we're meant to spend 30s with each ex-egi summon, that's just how much time we have to spend the aether. Once the aether is spent we're free to summon the next thing, or they can be delayed to use Garuda's Slipstream or Ifrit's melee. Not sure if those are one-time use or spammable, chances are one summon's abilities will be stronger (probably Ifrit ideally for single target melee, Garuda for aoe, Titan for ranged single target) so we'll spend more time with that one to fill the space between demi summons. If that's true we may have a melee phase for single target like RDM. Can't say I'm thrilled about that.

Concerns: Aetherflow still seems very out of place and has nothing to do with our summons or the special aether resource we get from them, it's even more detached now that Fester has no dots with which to interact. There doesn't seem to be much to think about or manage, no choice in ability usage beyond single target vs aoe, just spend the aether and you're good (boring) unless I'm missing something; we can alter the order of our minor summons and perhaps our time with them but how much does that matter? I imagine we'll still want Bahamut or Phoenix with raid buffs though they appear to be less special than the other summons which is odd.

I like dots so it sucks to see those go though I've always thought they made little sense for SMN (at least as poison abilities), but dots aside current SMN still has to worry about spending Egi Assault charges so they don't cap during Bahamut/Phoenix, not over-capping Ruin 4 charges, saving those instants when able for movement or buffs, and double the Aetherflow usage compared to Endwalker. All of that (plus dot management and proper Tri-Disaster usage) is what makes SMN fun for me. Bahamut and Phoenix phases are quite satisfying as well.

My impression of these changes is that SMN will be a lot more like RDM in that it's super straightforward with not much to think about and a bit of melee thrown in, except RDM has procs and two resource bars to maintain interest while SMN simply has aether to spend and I suppose it has 5 different mini-rotations (maybe) but nothing looks to be much more complex than 1-2 or Ruin spam with ogcds so uh... hopefully I'm wrong.

[Baxcel]

I would have seen it like that.

Sum bahamut>Garuda-Titan-ifrit.

Sum phoenix>Ramuh-Shiva-Leviathan

The power is the same. Only the glam changes.

This was what i was hoping for too

[Roda]

Looks like each summon probably has a single target and aoe spender and each summon has a timer which disappears after the aether is spent but at least with Ifrit we still have access to the gap closer and melee attack after the aether is spent. From the live letter: summoning Ifrit gives indefinite access (or until you summon something else) to Crimson Cyclone which is the gap closer; Garuda has the same wording for Slipstream (the persistent ground aoe); Titan apparently has no equivalent ability.

From what I've seen it all primals' "extra" ability (slipstream, cyclone, clap) seem to persist indefinitely until you access new aether.
Ifrit's and garuda's are tied to their summoning. Titan's is tied to his gem spell.

example:
"Additional Effect: Adds "Slipstream Available" effect to self
Duration: Indefinite"

Ruin 3 appears to have a shorter cast time? It's unclear which instants are gcd and ogcd, if Ruin 3 has a short cast time then most instants are likely ogcd.

You would think we would have more ogcds, but no they made a lot of our ogcds into gcds



You can see it on the list here. Under summon bahamut you see the japanese for "spell" (yeah it's a spell now.) and under energy drain down at the bottom, it retains it's ability status.
The gem spells are all, well, spells, so gcds.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

From what I've seen it all primals' "extra" ability (slipstream, cyclone, clap) seem to persist indefinitely until you access new aether.
Ifrit's and garuda's are tied to their summoning. Titan's is tied to his gem spell.

example:
"Additional Effect: Adds "Slipstream Available" effect to self
Duration: Indefinite"


You would think we would have more ogcds, but no they made a lot of our ogcds into gcds



You can see it on the list here. Under summon bahamut you see the japanese for "spell" (yeah it's a spell now.) and under energy drain down at the bottom, it retains it's ability status.

It should also be said that we know that there's at least one ability that we're supposed to have that wasn't on Yoshi-P's bars, so we have no idea what it is.

[MagiusNecros]

Lots of informations here.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...1rx_lQGHs/edit

I see a Summoning rotation with the occasional Energy Drain combo of Ruin 3 > Ruin 4(it's AoE now) > Fester or Painflare (depending on ST or AoE fights)