My humble take on new SMN

[mathias-merodach]

Maybe I would feel different if, like some, I had played summoner from older expansions. Maybe I would never have tried it. Those are things I can't speak to. What I can say is that it was Dragoon, because of Kain, and Dark Knight, because of Cecil, that I came to this game. But it was the summoner how it was, how it played, the abilities, and the lore of this specific version which entranced me enough to experiment in an area of classes that I otherwise avoid with great effort in all other games because the inability to otherwise find enjoyment. As it exists now, I could simply turn on FF13, put Lighting in her mage mode, and see the same thing: a character model spamming Ruin. High movement, flashy ruin, just like a DnD Warlock who, on occasion, sends their imp forward to do a touch of damage.

Both sides are passionate and care for the class. There are those that enjoy these changes. That, I feel, should be acknowledged and respected. Those are their feelings, regardless of where or how they developed them. But I, like others, do not. And those feelings should be acknowledged and respected just as much. For me, these changes have been an incredibly negative experience. To see the class that hooked me changed into something that does not in any way fulfill the fantasy that its former self did is a great damper on my experience leading me to the same mindset I, personally, left in when playing Red Mage: bored and a lack of fulfillment in any action I take. This is just me and my thoughts on it. And sorry for the long-winded reply. Took a lot more than I thought to make, what I hope, was a clear enough point.

[ServantNaoya]

The more I play with new SMN, the more I see that Astral Flow is really the thing that ties this new class together. Like, that's the foundation of the class, like the mudras for Ninja or the melee combo for Red Mage. This is what makes it so insulting that you get it so late. Imagine a Red Mage that has nothing but its basic Jolt Thunder/Aero spells, you slowly get Fire and Stone through 60 to 80, and then at 86 you finally get the melee combo. That's what SMN feels like. The very thing that makes the class work is backended at the end of the leveling process, and then it just stops there, never building on top of it. If the Astral Flow abilities came earlier, at 50 or 60, then the class would have room to breathe and grow into something. Since we're summoning Primals now, just get rid of the Egis entirely, and focus on giving us more of what makes the class fun; seeing how new summons give us different abilities and Astral Flows. Heck, you could get a whole second set of gems the second time you do your Demi summon, and side summons beside. We have SO many Primals to pick from now, it's just such a missed opportunity to force SMN into this direction without taking advantage of it.

At this point, I would untie the main summons from your pet system. Give them cast times, and then the summon is just the spell itself, the summon instantly comes out and does the attack. No more awkward moment where you summon Titan just as the enemy dies, and then Titan just stands there like an idiot not knowing what to do. That also open up the possibility for side-summons to be oGCDs, so we can finally replace Physick with something that isn't a literal waste of space, or, get this, a summon that applies DoTs! No poisons needed!

I dunno. There's just so much that could've been done with this, and yet it just does the bare minimum to be considered playable.

[dinnertime]

Now that I have it at 90, I appreciate that there's no downtime anymore which makes Ruin 3 utterly useless, but there's an even more lack of flexibility than before because you have to immediately summon everything once you spend your attunement and favors. I liked the old playstyle where you can basically manipulate your CDs so you're able to hold onto Dreadwyrm/Bahamut and prevent DPS loss, but I don't know how they'd bring that back in with this rework.

Also Demi Bahamut/Phoenix are still the most boring parts of the rework because you barely have ogcds to use in-between Ruins.

Edit: At this point Carbuncle should just be an animation effect when you use Radiant Aegis and Searing Light, but the abilities themselves are casted by yourself. Right now how it's designed is inconvenient.

[Raikai]

Now that I have it at 90, I appreciate that there's no downtime anymore which makes Ruin 3 utterly useless, but there's an even more lack of flexibility than before because you have to immediately summon everything once you spend your attunement and favors. I liked the old playstyle where you can basically manipulate your CDs so you're able to hold onto Dreadwyrm/Bahamut and prevent DPS loss, but I don't know how they'd bring that back in with this rework.

Also Demi Bahamut/Phoenix are still the most boring parts of the rework because you barely have ogcds to use in-between Ruins.

The thing about Ruin 3 is one other of the few peeves I've had with the redesign.

Of all "merged" abilities, I feel that Gemshine shouldn't exist as a standalone button and Ruin 3 should be what turns into the Primal basic action, just like it happens with the Demi. Yes, it would be 1 less button on a job with so few to begin with, but if Ruin is not usable ever, then that's actual bloat.

Or even better - to avoid losing the button completely - the current Gemshine functionality would be baked into Ruin 3 and Gemshine could become an extra oGCD during Primal/Demi phases. It would kill 2 birds with one gemstone.

[dinnertime]

Same with Outburst/Tri-Disaster.

Ruin/Gemshine and Tri-Disaster/Precious Brilliance literally have the same purpose. I don't see a reason to press Ruin 3 or Outburst when you have attunements at all. They should just get merged.

[Raikai]

Same with Outburst/Tri-Disaster.

Ruin/Gemshine and Tri-Disaster/Precious Brilliance literally have the same purpose. I don't see a reason to press Ruin 3 or Outburst when you have attunements at all. They should just get merged.

Yeah, forgot to mention Tri Disaster too. Precious Brilliance could become AOE oGCDs for the primal and demi phases.

[Roda]

I just want the satisfaction I had with good ruin IV and egi assault management, and the meaningful interactions I had fighting alongside my pets...
Don't take carbuncle away, enhance it. Give it purpose. (Let it EARN its mascot status!)
Let it stay out permanently (or at least not in demi phase), and have it interact with / augment parts of our gem phase, and then give us a payoff for good usage in the demi phase. (honestly, replace energydrain/aetherflow as a mechanic with this, since aetherflow is just boring damage buttons now)


Ideally, or rather, if I could rework the rework, I would want is for there to be more... respect (???) shown to the phases in between the demi summons. Right now they just feel like busywork
Personally it feels to me like the gem phases shouldn't be ammo skills to get off your hotbar as fast as possible, but more like stances that feel more.. "complete" than A Single Target, A AoE, and A Gimmick, something that feels like tools to solve problems, instead of them BEING the problems themselves. Where when you cast enough aligned spells, THEN the primal will come out to join you, and it stays out for a while to like... actually fight, and maybe get empowered by the spells you're casting alongside them. And once that summon has finished its thing, then you would be able to move to a new summon, and so on until you've unlocked the demi. (Basically I want more time not being in the demi phase, so both phases feel more substantial.)

Basically, casting elemental spells, augmented by carbuncle -> summoning bigfriend to fight alongside, casting our own spells, and empowering the bigfriend with carbuncle's built resource to build a new resource -> (repeat x amount) -> spend accumulated resource to summon empowered demi, which is comparatively a more relaxing phase, but also a more powerful phase to reward proper setup.

Let us choose which demi to summon, and go all in on differences. Give bahamut powerful hardcasts with a less powerful instant, give phoenix back his combo, and keep him mobile, and if we wanna get crazy, let us only be able to res in his phase, but like, make it cool (like rdm's chain res, have it eat into phoenix's summon duration or something)

But.. that's all very wishful thinking, I get that. I'd settle for more meaningful carbuncle interaction, and a rotation that makes me feel like I'm in control, instead of like I'm going down a checklist.

[Palladiamors]

"Old smn mains" however are not unified in any way shape or form. There were those who tolerated the state of affairs all throughout Shadowbringers who are thrilled with the rework and have never been happier, and there is a tiny but vocal minority of people who won't stop complaining that their complex poison mage got taken away. The only way to satisfy the latter is to give them Necromancer or something. Twisting Summoner to suit their desires brought the job to the point where the devs threw up their hands in surrender and ultimately led to the rework.

Stocking ruin ivs was not that great of a mechanic, and there is no way that I would ever support bringing back dots to babysit. One thing is a one-off ability like Gunbreaker's dot that you press once its available, which could easily fit for a Leviathan or Ramuh inspired attack, but another thing is the dot babysitting from old Summoner. That whole concept can stay in the trash or it can be tacked on to Necromancer in 2 years, but it certainly does not need to resurface in Summoner.

As a general point, anyone who brings up "bbbut Rydia casted Bio!" already loses legitimacy because why on earth would a *Summoner* prefer to use poison magic instead of primal-themed abilities? You already have Bahamut. I'm now a Summoner main after having abandoned the mess of a class we got in Shadowbringers and I say what we need are more primals, not Bio. Moving some more higher level abilities down to lower levels would be great for the class, and some primal-themed attacks to weave in between our currently existing spells would be the most thematically appropriate way to go about things.

Huh, funny, seems to me like you've got that backward. I see a vocal minority, most of whom never played summoner before and espouse as such, praising it, while most old summoners hate it and have stopped playing it. With any luck they'll ignore people like you and fix this train wreck.

[Duskane]

Huh, funny, seems to me like you've got that backward. I see a vocal minority, most of whom never played summoner before and espouse as such, praising it, while most old summoners hate it and have stopped playing it. With any luck they'll ignore people like you and fix this train wreck.

Reworks are generally here to stay.
I'm not really here to pick a side because honestly alot of people for both old and new SMN just act like pricks to each other
the real Vocal minority here is the ones who want improvement and can actually engage in a discussion to help the job instead of just insulting others because they like or hate the the direction job has taken.

[Duskane]

Right now this job plays like so early alpha version of bard minus the dot you push your burst strike/ruin click your song/primal push what lights up and go to town thats it

they really need to push those big primals to the mid 60 range same with the lvl 86 abilities

Pheonix needs to feel different to bahamut and not worse like now

Aetherflow has over stayed it welcome and honestly should just be removed and reworked for both SCH and SMN
it use to be the branch between smn and sch but now they are completely differently

i really hate job guage that are there to be there when most the time it could just be a status like in HW im gonna know when bahamut and primals are up because they highlight like im having an engine failure so why bother

job needs something else to do and carbuncle needs to do something besides gatekeeping.