Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Renathras]

It has the same disjointed systems then as it does now, except those systems work together les

Oh?

ARR: Autoattacking permanent egi (that could die in combat, but also one could tank) with a special ability on a CD, Ruin and Ruin 2, 3 DoTs, Aetherflow, Fester, Bane, Shadow Flare.
At this time, the gameplay was maintaining 3 DoTs (no, not four, you didn't have Miasma 2 until basically HW and Thunder was removed from cross-class in 2.1; the only extras you got from Cross-Class were Cleric Stance, Aero, and arguably Blizzard 2 for AOE situations), using Aetherflow on CD, using Fester on CD with AF stacks (I think it had a 5 or 10 sec CD to itself in addition to the AF cost), using the Egi attacks on CD (I'm trying to remember if we had Egi Assaults back then or just Enkindle, but basically those), and filler with Ruin. Ruin 2 did the same damage but had a slightly higher MP cost for the convenience of no cast time.

HW: Using Aetherflow gives you corrupted Aether and DWT. The rotation was otherwise the same, but you used DWT after expending all your AF, I believe. Then you got to use a bigger pew pew and did more damage. At this point in time, I think DWT didn't make your spells instant, it just increased the damage your Ruin 3 dealt.

SB: Now you have Bahamut. Using DWT twice - not once, twice - gave you Bahamut. When Bahamut was out, he had a weird way of working where he did a Wyrmwave for every single one of your attacks, including oGCDs. And "attacks" means "thing that struck an enemy target". As such, the above was amended to every second DWT, summon Bahamut then move as little as possible (he'd prioritize moving to your new location over attacking) and spam out as many GCD attacks and oGCD weaves of anything resembling an attack as possible. Addle counted as an "attack" in this system. Oh, and you had two Enkindle Bahamut uses (I think it was) to use under Bahamut, one at the start and the second before he left. But not TOO soon on summoning him or dismissing him. You also wanted to make sure your first spell on summoning him was Ruin 3 not Ruin 2/Further Ruin 4 because he'd come in with "summoning sickness" and wiff that first attack if you did an instant. You also wanted to end with an instant if possible so he didn't wiff the final attack while departing.

ShB: Now with more Phoenix, the system was kind of the same, but you no longer needed two DWTs to summon Bahamut. Moreover, DWT didn't require burning AF stacks to use. There was also a major patch somewhere during it, but at the start of ShB, it still had the "cram GCD" thing going. Egi-Assaults were turned into GCDs at some point, and now were the source of Further Ruin (I don't remember what it was before, but it was something else, maybe procs from DoTs?), and the rotation became an odd combination of rigid and flexible, depending on how you were looking at it. The rotation was a strict 2 minutes before there was the EW 2 min meta (irony...). It opened with DWT (getting all your weaves in to set up for Bahamut), then Bahamut, a natural Bio/Miasma refresh, spending Egi-Assaults before the 1 min mark, refressing DoTs with Tri-Disaster before FBT (DWT and FBT now both refreshed T-D, which was an oGCD that applied both DoTs), then roll into Phoenix, then filler for ~40 sec, building up the 4 Further Ruins for the 3:15 Bahamut, using the T-D refreshed by FBT at the 1:30 mark then using the one refreshed by DWT as soon as you entered it to close the loop on that end.

The disjointed systems were that AF had nothing to do with anything else and wasn't tied to anything else, the Egis were just kinda...there...at this point, Phoenix had nothing to do with Bahamut, FBT had nothing to do with DWT other than relying on it to start its CD, DWT kinda had something to do with Bahamut, neither had anything to do with Egis other than you wanted 4 Ruin 4s for Bahamut (but not Phoenix because its 1-2 combo was entirely self-contained and used your Ruin 3 and...Outburst [whatever its name was at the time] buttons for...god only knows why the second hit was the AOE one...), and each sub-phase could be seen as a disjointed time capsule of the Job: Filler was ARR, DWT was HW, Bahamut was SB, and Phoenix was ShB.

EW SMN, on the other hand...has almost none of that. The only thing it has that's really disjointed from the rest of the rotation is Energy Drain/Siphon and Fester/Painflare. They could just give it Painflare as a 2 charge, 30 sec recharge and Ruin 4 as a 60 sec CD GCD (or have it be generated by DWT/FBT instead of ED/ES) and nothing of value would be lost, and "The last remnants of the Old Republic (er, 2.0 ACN) have been swept away."

There wasn't much "synergy" to the older SMN, it was just a convoluted mess that worked despite itself but had several things that didn't make sense with the whole. For example, you only used Bio and Miasma 1 time every 2 minutes. There was really no point to them. If summoning Bahamut had refreshed Tri-Disaster, those two buttons could have been removed, the two DoTs could have been consolidated into one debuff, and nothing in the rotation would have changed. Bahamut and Phoenix were disjointed. FBT and DWT were disjointed. Egi Assaults were disjointed from everything other than cramming 4 Ruin IVs into Bahamut.

The new systems may be streamlined and sterile, but they absolutely work together other than Energy Drain/Siphon/Aetherflow stacks, which are just kinda...there. The Demis work mostly like FBT did in ShB, and lead into the Primals. you can say they "require nothing", but one generates the other, and then using all three closes the 1 min loop. There aren't disparate systems; there almost aren't any systems at all. Ruin 4 is used as a movement tool if movement is required under Ifrit that Swiftcast alone can't handle or when it needs to be held for something else (Slipstream or a Raise). So the only piece that really is disparate at this point is Energy Drain/Fester. The rest of the kit makes sense with itself and isn't disjointed at all. If ED/ES/Fester were removed, DWT/FBT generated Ruin 4, and Painflare was a 30 sec CD 2 stacking oGCD on its own, the kit wouldn't have anything disjointed at all about it.

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Note, this isn't saying New SMN is a good Job (I believe it is, but for different reasons), but it's not a clunky cobbled together Frankenstein's Monster like Old SMN was. I don't think ANY Job is like Old SMN in that respect.