Smn Rework Suggestions After LL

[Vallhallix]

Players just cry way to much about gameplay, just because they like some aesthetics or the role to be a SMN, MNK, MCH, whatever class is discussed permanently.

SMN main here, i'm not getting screwed over at all, my class finally seems like it has a solid fix and actual rotation. And rid itself of all it's clunky mechanics. I will miss stuff like baning additional targets which wasn't even complex in the first place, neither was refreshing two dots, but I prefer my class plays like an actual one instead of a confused disaster of a class when every other class in the game has all but tightened and smoothed out their gameplay, and it was at it's worst in shb especially with the clunky pet abilities which the MAJORITY of people did not like, with phoenix being the only highlight of an uninspired clunky rotation. People cried, because it was bad, people actually swapped to the other casters because it was that horrible to play, loyalist like me stuck with the class even though I acknowledged it was bad. Stop pretending it's just outsiders MOST of us smn mains are happy with this change and rejoicing, not until I came to this dps section did I find smns complaining about this change, which pretty much happens with every change here to begin with.

This is what most people wanted. More summons that worked in the line of phoenix, we even wanted Bahamut to have skills in the same vain of Phoenix, to make his phase less boring, I was here months ago when people were demanding it. They listened. All while keeping SMN's mobility intact, and fixing other minor issues. They took 3 poorly designed clunky pets, 1 completely useless one, and made them into something that works, something where all 3 are utilized. Now they have a proper base for the class, and should not suffer as much confusion going forward like they've done with every single expansion for the previous SMN. SMN working like a reskinned arcanist, and being bundled in with Scholar was a mistake, they spent too many expansions trying to fix that mistake. The summons changing the SMN abilities with the introduction of Phoenix was the best thing to happen to the class in years, and the logical thing for them to build upon. Now they have a proper direction for SMN as we've seen with the Ifrit charge and melee, this opens the door for them to get creative with future abilities instead of spending each expansion trying to add on new things to an already busted class. No doubt in future content they will add new skills to our existing summon phases.

This will probably also fix how terrible Summoner plays low level compared to every other class in the game.

[rewd]

This is what most people wanted. [...] No doubt in future content they will add new skills to our existing summon phases.

Lots of things to address here:

- You didn't get more summons that worked like Phoenix. You got avatars that show up and go away after 2 seconds. What you actually got is 3 different phases where you fight as a channeler/geomancer/elementalist, not a summoner

- Let's compare old Bahamut and new Bahamut. Old Bahamut was a burst phase and you could feel the build up to it. In order to maximize DPS you needed to prepare for it and get 4 Ruin IV stacks. Movement was something you had manage, not necessarily because of pet AI (which was only a problem in the last ~5 seconds anyway), but because you would alternate instacasts with hardcasts. You could deal with movement by shuffling around your use of instacasts while still keeping your Wyrmwaves total to 8. You could even have the option to decouple Bahamut from DWT.
New Bahamut: there's no build up, Bahamut is a GCD you use at the start of the fight. It is actually the build up to something minor. Movement? Not an issue, you get to spam the same button over and over again which is of course an instacast, so you could run a marathon if you wanted to. We did get two cool animations in return, though. If you think the new Bahamut is more fun/less boring, then good for you. Sadly, me and other people wouldn't mind to have to use their brain even just a little.

- They kept mobility intact? They took a very mobile caster and made it a phys ranged DPS. SMN was very mobile but its mobility options were tied to DPS, so you still had to manage those (Assaults and Ruin IV). Now, all gone, you are the... Instacast mage, I guess?

- You didn't get functional pets, you get 3 animations. Pretty, but still animations.

[Atomos]

Lots of things to address here:

- You didn't get more summons that worked like Phoenix. You got avatars that show up and go away after 2 seconds. What you actually got is 3 different phases where you fight as a channeler/geomancer/elementalist, not a summoner

- Let's compare old Bahamut and new Bahamut. Old Bahamut was a burst phase and you could feel the build up to it. In order to maximize DPS you needed to prepare for it and get 4 Ruin IV stacks. Movement was something you had manage, not necessarily because of pet AI (which was only a problem in the last ~5 seconds anyway), but because you would alternate instacasts with hardcasts. You could deal with movement by shuffling around your use of instacasts while still keeping your Wyrmwaves total to 8. You could even have the option to decouple Bahamut from DWT.
New Bahamut: there's no build up, Bahamut is a GCD you use at the start of the fight. It is actually the build up to something minor. Movement? Not an issue, you get to spam the same button over and over again which is of course an instacast, so you could run a marathon if you wanted to. We did get two cool animations in return, though. If you think the new Bahamut is more fun/less boring, then good for you. Sadly, me and other people wouldn't mind to have to use their brain even just a little.

- They kept mobility intact? They took a very mobile caster and made it a phys ranged DPS. SMN was very mobile but its mobility options were tied to DPS, so you still had to manage those (Assaults and Ruin IV). Now, all gone, you are the... Instacast mage, I guess?

- You didn't get functional pets, you get 3 animations. Pretty, but still animations.

What's your point exactly? Because 6.0 smn actually summons six different entities and three different summoning styles in a whole job rotation instead of the lackluster egi's(one of which was never used) and the two time limited elder summons. Aesthetically speaking, this is much more pleasing. We still have carbuncle as an egi, we still have the two limited summons, but instead of more egi's, we now have three satisfying summon animations that deal damage and then changes attacks to three elemental attacks. The end of the day it's up to personal taste, whether it be aesthetically or functionality.

[Karshan]

Lots of things to address here:

- You didn't get more summons that worked like Phoenix. You got avatars that show up and go away after 2 seconds. What you actually got is 3 different phases where you fight as a channeler/geomancer/elementalist, not a summoner

- Let's compare old Bahamut and new Bahamut. Old Bahamut was a burst phase and you could feel the build up to it. In order to maximize DPS you needed to prepare for it and get 4 Ruin IV stacks. Movement was something you had manage, not necessarily because of pet AI (which was only a problem in the last ~5 seconds anyway), but because you would alternate instacasts with hardcasts. You could deal with movement by shuffling around your use of instacasts while still keeping your Wyrmwaves total to 8. You could even have the option to decouple Bahamut from DWT.
New Bahamut: there's no build up, Bahamut is a GCD you use at the start of the fight. It is actually the build up to something minor. Movement? Not an issue, you get to spam the same button over and over again which is of course an instacast, so you could run a marathon if you wanted to. We did get two cool animations in return, though. If you think the new Bahamut is more fun/less boring, then good for you. Sadly, me and other people wouldn't mind to have to use their brain even just a little.

- They kept mobility intact? They took a very mobile caster and made it a phys ranged DPS. SMN was very mobile but its mobility options were tied to DPS, so you still had to manage those (Assaults and Ruin IV). Now, all gone, you are the... Instacast mage, I guess?

- You didn't get functional pets, you get 3 animations. Pretty, but still animations.

And animations are all they were until FFX. Garuda coming, doing an attack and immediately leaving, is EXACTLY what I always wanted and thought I get before starting ARR, and got a pet / dot class instead.
I got used to it but class fantasy was really wanting. Now ? I don't care that I'm a geomancer for the 15 seconds after : the summons finally behave the way A LOT of people like them, which is the pre-FF10 way.
Demis are more like most recent FF.

So I can play current SMN in full rotation and find it ok, but the class fantasy isn't there. The new iteration is clearly dumbed down rotation wise (there is still one or 2 subtleties on some transitions, I tried checking a preliminary rotation) but class fantasy has shown its nose for the very first time. I would have been ok keeping the old one but now that I saw the new I'm really reaaallllyyy excited and want them to develop further that road now, with Alexander, Ramuh, Shiva....

The only gripe I have with the rework (I'm not 100% selfish, only 70%), is that they did not provide a pet / dot class at the same time. So for people who didn't play or love FF and their summoners until 9 and thus preferred the warlock / pet aspect of XiV smn, they got robbed of this kind of gameplay without a trade off. And will have to wait 2 years for the (very probable) next caster DPS in hope it embarks those "tactical" aspects.

I feel a lot of heat and pages would have been avoided just for one word : if the current iteration would have kept the name arcanist (without the demis), and the one coming presented as something new, a summoner, everybody would be more relaxed. Like someone mentioned, they attached the word summoner when gameplat wise they were not ready for it, and for 8 years it's been called that and so many people don't understand why we were upset of this "initial ill branding" that's getting rectified. And by rectified I don't mean superior gameplay but "adequate to classic FF name" gameplay.

Now they need to design a real pet / dot class as well. It's a shame they are only gonna do it in 2 years (with a chance of not happening), they should have done it here to split in 2 the functionnalities.