Anyone else think caster has suffered this expansion? (hopes for the future)

[Ggwppino]

I feel like the current Endwalker iteration of SMN kinda stifles any potential future skill advancement with how the pets operate.

Imagine if the smn has other summons, perhaps with a different cast time, being woven together with the ones we currently have. So x (x>3) evocations to be used within in the lego 45 seconds (and also suitably lengthened). The aim will be to use them all, but not all spells will have to be used, adapting to the game mechanics. This already considerably increases the effort that a smn has to make. Free the pet from the elementals and make it useful: shields that shield you and the selected target, restore the buff to the pet and reduce the range of the buff, put phoenix heals on some carbuncle abilities that recharge, (Excuse me for quoting a my comment of another post) add a dash that takes you towards the carbuncle; in this way the smn, in addition to thinking about the rotation, also returns to thinking about the positioning of the pet, keeping it busy. The core remains the same: elemental summons, but add gimmick to keep the smn busy.

[BaconBits]

EW SMN is one of the most vapidly designed jobs XIV has ever introduced and I'm tired of pretending to be nice about it. There is no thought to playing it, no planning, nothing. It brings nothing new or interesting and has no room for depth or growth- not without needing another extensive rework. Just press buttons on cooldown and watch different flavoured explosions.

What an absolute joke.

Preach King.

[Cicero634]

As a Blm since ARR launch, being a caster has rarely felt so unrewarding as of now. We need to put in a lot more work than melee to not even be able to keep up with them dps wise. We have positioning issues, uptime issues, lack of mobility, yet melee out-dps us without even trying.
Unpopular opinion, but Blm should do more dps than melee. Blm has zero utility, which was always used as an excuse for its high dmg, but we don't do any more atm. We traded high numbers against being able to move at will and against having anything to help the party (what little we had was taken from us). That was not a problem, cause what we brought was killing the boss faster, but since we don't atm, the only reason to even bring a caster these days is the 1% buff and a tad faster lb build up.

Yeah BLM has some issues even in the current raid tier like with p7s the amount of uptime you can have is entirely up to rng.

[Renathras]

Honestly, I really like New SMN, but I feel like they shouldn't have removed Old SMN. New SMN feels more like what I think a SMN should feel like, and it plays well, but I think the old one should still have a place. They could basically have added a new Job into the game for free by splitting the two into the Summons side and the Green Mage/enfeeblement and status effect (e.g. DoTs) side. Old SMN very much had enough abilities they could have made two fully functional Jobs out of it.

Caster feels okay for me to play (though I mainly play Healers and SMN, and rarely RDM, so not sure how it feels for most BLMs or even more dedicated RDMs), but Endwalker does seem to very clearly have a preference for Melee Jobs.

When bosses have hitboxes the size of (as Wesk Alber says) Earthly Galaxy, Melee is practically Ranged with benefits. And that's before we get to omnidirectional wall bosses with no positionals, the removal of most positionals and reduction in DPS loss from missing a positional, and that bosses routinely teleport back to the center to ensure Melee have a good chance to keep hitting them no matter what mechanics are going on.

Unpopular opinion, but Blm should do more dps than melee.

I don't think that's actually an unpopular opinion with anyone other than maybe some Melee players. And I think even most of them respect good BLMs.

[Valence]

To the people that mourn summoner, welcome to what they did to MCH for ShB. Even though old SMN wasn't especially hard either, more like fighting against your pets...

To the people that mourn the state of casters (bar BLM), welcome to what rphys has been since ShB.

Let's unite casters, and break free of our second rate dps job chains.

[DudeManMcCool]

I think saboteur like in ff13 with all the debunks would be cool. And then you can choose to "detonate" your DoTs for massive damage or keep em on the enemy for benefits for the whole party. Throw in some other damage spells in there too.

[Renathras]

RDM feels fine tbh and they even got an ability that plays into their WHM aspect. AoE rotation still feels awful.

AOE rotation feels BACKWARDS still, since it is backwards from the single target. They did fix the "let you use your finisher without single targeting things", though, which I approve of. Though they also made the Job more complex and technical with the Mana changes, which...I like less, since I don't care much for technical and complex Jobs (imo, people should be able to more or less figure out the optimal way to play a Job just reading tooltips and not needing guides, and you can't do that with a lot of Jobs).

SMN, on the other hand...Old SMN should have been split into two Jobs, New SMN and Green Mage. Outside of Bahamut, Phoenix, and the Egis existing, the rest of Old SMN's kit was really a Green Mage/Green Caller. Not to mention an absolute mess. SMN now feels like an actual SMN, even if a bit barebones (as you say, they're likely planning to add more in 7.0), but now there's a hole where the Green Mage/DoT Mage/Warlock part was. And it's not like it would kill them to give us a new Caster, since it's the subrole that's gone the longest without a new addition now (SB with RDM being the most recently added one)

BLM is like the Tardis from Dr. Who: It has paradox shielding and is immune to all changes in the universe/game around it.

[CKNovel]

Caster role is really not good right now.
You have RDM that went from the most mobile to the least mobile caster.
BLM is a job for a very niche number of players.
And finally SMN who those who wants to play a braindead job.

There's a lack of choice, it's either the most difficult job, the most simple job or RDM which lacks mobility.


Ranged&Healer roles have been let down too. If you're not playing melee or tank, you're very limited in choices.
Shadowbringers was CasterBringer, but Endwalker is Meleewalker.

[NullPointerException]

RED MAGE: (edit, rephrase) Red mage lacks personal mit. Magic barrier is magic only, 10 seconds, 120s cooldown with a 5% heal up that doesn't really help much at all. If the healers need certain gcd/cooldowns, they still do regardless of the 5% heal up.
DPS-wise, it hits like a wet noodle while not being particularly adaptable. E. Reprise is completely garbage and has no place in the optimization - which it should. White and black mana are just two random integers and don't carry particular meaning, while the PvP example shows that they CAN be separate things for separate purposes. Vercure is more of a downtime tool to prep dual-cast than an actual utility.
When the game is balanced around the last 1% of DPS, a 3% variance is a night-and-day difference. At least someday I can make "TOP used to be harder before red mage buffs" memes. Eh, maybe a full rework at 7.0?

SMN: Feels like it was designed as the class for SCH players who feel like playing DPS, yet it is the default caster for high end content. As long as SMN exists in its current state and can pump as much damage as it does while providing so many personal safety nets, it'll always overshadow red mage.

BLM: I hate the "fake melee" talk. Why does the game revolve around 2 melees? Why is 3 ranged off-meta? Why 120s ley lines?

[Valence]

Red mages have addle AND magick barrier and still find a way to complain about their party wide mitigation tools.

I'll just go cry away in muffled rphys noises.