I thought people might be exaggerating about SMN

[BaconBits]

Yeah, if we wanted to spam one damage spell forever, we'd play a healer.

[Madoka]

The tl;dr is this. If you did not like old SMN for whatever reason, and do not main SMN currently. You probably enjoy playing it now. It's simple to play, easy to setup hotbars for and flashy and cool for something you decide to queue on with friends or run around doing hunts on when you want to not have to think.

If you played the old SMN, mained the old SMN, or main the new SMN you find out very quickly that the rotation is unrewarding, partially from being so easy that every fight can be approached the same way, but mainly from how simple it is. Your big flashy animations don't feel as good once you realize you're using them every 15 seconds and they aren't a huge potency boost over your flavor of ruin you were casting just before. And the more time you spend on it, the more boring it gets because there's nothing dynamic to fights, and since we have instant casts for at least every 50 of 60 seconds there's little need to worry about trying to finish a spell or being a greedyboi to dodge mechanics. Also we've ironically lost ruin II as the backup "oh crap i need to move a lot and burned my instants already" which is kind of funny to me.

I think samurai casts more than summoner right now, or at least as many times, which is hilarious.

[MrPresident]

I like it. It’s not perfect but it feels the closest it’s ever been to what an actual FF summoner is. Dot Mage in ARR may have felt a bit more complex but it’s not what a summoner should be.

[Madoka]

I like it. It’s not perfect but it feels the closest it’s ever been to what an actual FF summoner is. Dot Mage in ARR may have felt a bit more complex but it’s not what a summoner should be.

SMN has never had one single identity over the entire history of FF as they almost always had another job class. In 5 you got to choose that sub job, in 3 there are actually two summoning jobs. The actual summoner and the Evoker (and technically sage but it's the omnicaster). XIV's summoner has actually always been closer to Evoker from 3, than any other SMN in the series with the mixed usage of damage and support skills. Maybe they should have just called it Evoker to start with and people wouldn't have been getting upset over it for a decade. Or people could have just accepted that it was another new incarnation of the job, like all previous ones. I don't see people crying about Sage not knowing every white and black magic spell in XIV afterall.

[Ilenya]

The tl;dr is this...If you played the old SMN, mained the old SMN, or main the new SMN you find out very quickly that the rotation is unrewarding,

Maybe this is because I main a healer, but I actually find the whole SMN rotation fun. It's been a long while since I played a DPS that I actually had fun with the rotation more than felt like I was working around it, but I'll readily admit I have a very Healer focused mindset while playing and generally have not done especially well when playing a DPS.

[Floortank]

Is it popular based on it's merits, or is it simply being used a lot because it's the class that got the most changes?

It's simply easier to use than the other casters, and easier to use than any other Job than DNC. Of course it will be played heavily. People who are new and less experienced want to be able to contribute on a Job too. So now they have SMN.

Also, the revamp makes sense, since anybody coming into the game from outside expects a Final Fantasy Job to actually resemble a Final Fantasy Job, and not Warlock from WOW.

[aveyond-dreams]

SMN has never had one single identity over the entire history of FF as they almost always had another job class. In 5 you got to choose that sub job, in 3 there are actually two summoning jobs. The actual summoner and the Evoker (and technically sage but it's the omnicaster). XIV's summoner has actually always been closer to Evoker from 3, than any other SMN in the series with the mixed usage of damage and support skills. Maybe they should have just called it Evoker to start with and people wouldn't have been getting upset over it for a decade. Or people could have just accepted that it was another new incarnation of the job, like all previous ones. I don't see people crying about Sage not knowing every white and black magic spell in XIV afterall.

Because unlike pre-6.0 SMN, Sage isn't a horribly designed job with conflicting systems that ultimately caused so many problems that the devs gave up on it. It's a healer that has more damage skills, which people like. In the end while it can't use both black and white magic they were able to provide an experience that a lot of people are presently enjoying, just like new SMN.

[IdowhatIwant]

MCH is also criticized as being a braindead job after it received its lobotomy. That's a poor example to start with.

You pin pointed MCH but he talked about Drg too.

[mathias-merodach]

So, then it's okay to resemble a Warlock from Dungeons and Dragons then? So, you must have a problem with Reaper as well?

[Quintessa]

Hyperbole much?

SMN is apparently a one button cannon now.