Summoner rework is a huge dissapointment

[Dahlinea]

...But they went a little too far and stripped so many other things. It's very unnecessary. Still hoping they look back into SB SMN and revert Aetherflow into something you spend to build up into summoning Bahamut/Phoenix.

This is spot on. If you compare current SMN and 5.x SMN, you see the rework is just a lot of trivializations of the previous SMN mechanics.

- Removing DoTs made Fester potency standalone.
- Merged DWT with Summon Bahamut, no more Ruin II as it used to be, free Ruin IV's (now named Astral Impulse) and Bahamut auto attacks. Merging was fine but Astral Impulse being "free" combined with no Ruin II and Bahamut auto makes that phase extremely basic (same for Phoenix).
- Garuda, Titan and Ifrit replaced that preparation phase we had between Bahamut phases to keep dps up and gather Further Ruin stacks. But now we don't have to manage anything, just raw damage.

We can't deny that the visuals are good and we have more summons at hand now but the rework feels unfinished in gameplay department, rushed at some point.



On a more personal note, something that really bugs me about SMN is the fact that you have to use Bahamut/Phoenix to access G/I/T when it would make more sense to be the other way around. Even the gems near the gauge feels like it would make more sense if they filled as you used G/I/T and when the 3 are filled you get access to Bahamut/Phoenix.
I wonder if one of the reasons for this is to keep Bahamut as the opener like it was before, though stripped of everything else.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

On a more personal note, something that really bugs me about SMN is the fact that you have to use Bahamut/Phoenix to access G/I/T when it would make more sense to be the other way around. Even the gems near the gauge feels like it would make more sense if they filled as you used G/I/T and when the 3 are filled you get access to Bahamut/Phoenix.
I wonder if one of the reasons for this is to keep Bahamut as the opener like it was before, though stripped of everything else.

I think that is why they did that, to have Bahamut in our opener since it is our burst phase but they could have just given smn a 120s button that just gave you the three gems to summon a demi for free(like manafication or amplifer). I like the idea of going through the element summons to get to the demi a lot better than just having demis on a timer.

[Bacillus]

Carbuncle must go, i need both Searing Light and Radiant Aegis not being dependable of carbuncle.

Put it as an arcanist summon, as a glamour for elemental summons, i dont care, but it needs to go.

Also i cant understand whats behind the Soul drain fester combo, no synergies, nothing, plain bad, leave a dot at least?

I really think that we need a Dot, a single one, everyone has a Dot.

[Exodus-E]

I really think that we need a Dot, a single one, everyone has a Dot.

Everyone aside from WAR, RPR, DNC and RDM, you mean.
Also, SMN still (technically) has a DoT through Garuda's Slipstream.

[Rolder50]

Everyone aside from WAR, RPR, DNC and RDM, you mean.
Also, SMN still (technically) has a DoT through Garuda's Slipstream.

Reaper's Death Design is a dot-in-spirit since it's a debuff on the boss you need to keep 100% uptime on.

[Arkavien]

Reaper's Death Design is a dot-in-spirit since it's a debuff on the boss you need to keep 100% uptime on.

What? How is that even remotely kinda sorta a DoT?

[Grimoire-M]

What? How is that even remotely kinda sorta a DoT?

It's a debuff. That's literally the only thing about it that matches. It has more in common with Trick Attack than it does Bio/Miasma.

[MagiusNecros]

Reaper's Death Design is a dot-in-spirit since it's a debuff on the boss you need to keep 100% uptime on.

I guess Heavy Thrust was a DoT too because that's all DD is. And pumping your Det stat basically lets Reaper have +20% damage forever for free.

[dinnertime]

On a more personal note, something that really bugs me about SMN is the fact that you have to use Bahamut/Phoenix to access G/I/T when it would make more sense to be the other way around. Even the gems near the gauge feels like it would make more sense if they filled as you used G/I/T and when the 3 are filled you get access to Bahamut/Phoenix.
I wonder if one of the reasons for this is to keep Bahamut as the opener like it was before, though stripped of everything else.

Yeah I agree. Aetherflow should give you gems to summon Garuda, Ifrit or Titan, then spend that to access Bahamut/Phoenix. Also at this point Ruin IV should be made an oGCD you collect stacks of, then spend during Bahamut or Phoenix phases.

I think that is why they did that, to have Bahamut in our opener since it is our burst phase but they could have just given smn a 120s button that just gave you the three gems to summon a demi for free(like manafication or amplifer). I like the idea of going through the element summons to get to the demi a lot better than just having demis on a timer.

This is what they should've done.

I'm pretty sure the original reason why Bahamut is now the opener is because back in 5.x SMNs would skip DWT by prematurely using Deathflare with no DPS loss. You can use Aetherflow (and other abilities in general) outside of combat before, so you can have stacks pre-pull then wait for the cooldown to almost be ready pre-pull for a quick shortcut to Bahamut. I also remember people getting so upset that SMN was doing too much damage because of it, but SMN mains liked doing it so I guess they made it the intentional way now.

In compensation it lost a lot of flexibility and we now have this playstyle of needing to press our buttons when they're available or it's a DPS loss.