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.

[tearagion]

tldr

newSMN is by definition as, or more, disjointed as/than shbSMN and your colossal post doesn't change that.

[Dahlinea]

Oh?
Wall of text with a lot of misconceptions

Fist of all, ShB SMN was not disjointed the way you paint it to be. The more I read your posts the more I see that you didn't understand how to play old SMN at all and probably just read how it works on some site teaching how to play and optimize it... or is just outright trolling.

Energy Drain/Syphoon gave Fester that needed DoTs applied to get its maximum damage. DoTs were applied either by using Bio and Miasma or Tri-disaster. The latter were refreshed every time you used DWT or Summon Phoenix. Egi-assaults gave Further Ruin stacks to use Ruin IV during movement phases outside Bahamut or during Bahamut to maximize its Wyrmwave attacks that were triggered by our spells. Want to call it cluncky because of pet responsiveness? Fine. But disjointed? Nah... you don't seem to know the old job like you claim it.

Current SMN is more disjoint than ever, the only thing tying something to another one is summoning Bahamut/Phoenix to have access to your legos and that's one of the reasons the job is so rigid. Your legos don't interact with each other, they are all disjoint and don't affect anything else in the rotation. Bahamut/Phoenix are self contained and don't interact with anything else in the rotation. The Demis are glorified DoTs now and do their attacks automatically. Aetherflow just give Fester, which don't need anything from the rotation to do its max damage, and a single Ruin IV that's worthless as a tool for movement since 90% of SMN spells are instacast. Would be better if Aetherflow gave 2 or more stacks of hardcasted Ruin IV spells to use for filler instead of Ruin III in a optimal scenario...

Also

There aren't disparate systems; there almost aren't any systems at all.

You said it all. There is basically no system to manage, that's why the job is braindead as it is. And that's why we're complaining about it.

[ty_taurus]

Current SMN is more disjoint than ever, the only thing tying something to another one is summoning Bahamut/Phoenix to have access to your legos.

I disagree on this point. I will say, overall, I really like the general direction that we are trying to take SMN in, but unhappy with the execution. It just is very inflexible and feels like the kit is unfinished and empty right now, but is otherwise a good foundation for something more. ShB SMN was the most disjointed of all iterations by far. It felt like the kitchen sink job--a garage sale of many different pieces that have no interaction with one another outside of specific, isolated combinations. SB SMN was very punishing, but I think that was peak SMN experience. It felt way more cohesive than ShB's smoothie challenge headache.

[Dahlinea]

It felt like the kitchen sink job--a garage sale of many different pieces that have no interaction with one another outside of specific, isolated combinations.

Yeah I can't agree with that or we're having different interpretations of what "disjoint" means. Disjoint for me is isolated pieces or independent and current SMN has a lot of independent blocks that don't interact with each other at all. Old SMN had dependencies, abilities resetting because of using other ones, the potency of Fester altering because of because of DoTs, using Egi-assaults before so we get to use Ruin IV during Bahamut to take most of it... I can't see this as disjoint at all.

I can understand your point if you mean that those abilities are not of same nature to be interacting with each other, because as a job system when you look at them as purely skills and abilities they did interact.

I just hope they free Bahamut/Phoenix from being a requirement to accessing the legos and add more additional abilities to fill the gaps the job has on next expansion.

[ty_taurus]

Yeah I can't agree with that or we're having different interpretations of what "disjoint" means. Disjoint for me is isolated pieces or independent and current SMN has a lot of independent blocks that don't interact with each other at all. Old SMN had dependencies, abilities resetting because of using other ones, the potency of Fester altering because of because of DoTs, using Egi-assaults before so we get to use Ruin IV during Bahamut to take most of it... I can't see this as disjoint at all.

I can understand your point if you mean that those abilities are not of same nature to be interacting with each other, because as a job system when you look at them as purely skills and abilities they did interact.

I just hope they free Bahamut/Phoenix from being a requirement to accessing the legos and add more additional abilities to fill the gaps the job has on next expansion.

I mean, I'll definitely grant that SMN was never a major part of my gameplay experience prior, so my opinion is definitely one worth taking with a grain of salt, but it was the one DPS I played at least somewhat frequently at times prior to ShB since ARR.

But what I liked about SB SMN was that it felt like most of what you did was all working toward this one big moment where you summoned Bahamut. ShB removed that aspect, and the Egi Assaults into Ruin IV didn't contribute to that either. It felt like the thing I wanted to do, which is summon, was always interrupted by fidget tasks to keep my damage decent until I could summon again. The remaining connection Tri-Disaster had with summons was the one thing that felt connective.

EDIT: You know, having said that, wouldn't it be an incredibly simple change to just rearrange the Ifrit/Titan/Garuda relationship with Bahamut/Phoenix? Like instead of Bahamut and Phoenix granting you 1 of each gem, what if Summon Ifrit/Titan/Garuda gives you that respective gem instead of taking it, and you need to have 3 different gems to summon Bahamut or summon Phoenix? Like, that's not the magic cure for everything, but it immediately allows you to just resummon Titan if you need to delay your burst, and also makes it very easy to add a 4th summon potentially that is interchangable and has some other element that encourages all 4 see use throughout the fight at different times?

You can still summon Bahamut right away at the beginning of an instance for your opener.

[Dahlinea]

I mean, I'll definitely grant that SMN was never a major part of my gameplay experience prior, so my opinion is definitely one worth taking with a grain of salt, but it was the one DPS I played at least somewhat frequently at times prior to ShB since ARR.

But what I liked about SB SMN was that it felt like most of what you did was all working toward this one big moment where you summoned Bahamut. ShB removed that aspect, and the Egi Assaults into Ruin IV didn't contribute to that either. It felt like the thing I wanted to do, which is summon, was always interrupted by fidget tasks to keep my damage decent until I could summon again. The remaining connection Tri-Disaster had with summons was the one thing that felt connective.

I get what you mean. The time I had my most fun with SMN was by the end of Heavensward and during Stormblood. If we compare ShB SMN with SB SMN I completely agree that SB was better. It was a shame the Egis didn't work because their abilities were nice. Rouse, Radiant Shield, Earthen Ward, Contagion... I miss those.

EDIT: You know, having said that, wouldn't it be an incredibly simple change to just rearrange the Ifrit/Titan/Garuda relationship with Bahamut/Phoenix? Like instead of Bahamut and Phoenix granting you 1 of each gem, what if Summon Ifrit/Titan/Garuda gives you that respective gem instead of taking it, and you need to have 3 different gems to summon Bahamut or summon Phoenix? Like, that's not the magic cure for everything, but it immediately allows you to just resummon Titan if you need to delay your burst, and also makes it very easy to add a 4th summon potentially that is interchangable and has some other element that encourages all 4 see use throughout the fight at different times?

You can still summon Bahamut right away at the beginning of an instance for your opener.

I proposed something like that and other things in another thread about future hopes of caster. It was like that about I/G/T filling the gem gauge, the difference is that instead of Bahamut/Phoenix it would give access to a repurposed Tri-disaster ability and expend all gems after using it and reset the summons (or shift, if more summons are added). There I decoupled the 3 summons from Bahamut/Phoenix but it could work as gathering the gems to summons the big ones and makes more sense in this order.

[Renathras]

....

New SMN - Demis feed into Primals, Primals feed into their sub-phase, Ruin 4 exists as a movement tool during two of the phases if needed, and that's the Job. The only thing "off to the side" (another way of saying "disjointed") is Energy Drain, Energy Siphon (though those prep Ruin 4, so they have a reason to exist, they just make less thematic sense), and Fester. Painflare, technically coming from Bahamut, thematically makes sense for SMN to have. The only part of the kit that doesn't thematically make sense is the Aetherflow part, but it IS connected to the Job as a whole as driving its burst as weaves between Bahamut GCDs.

(Note: Not having DoTs to interact with isn't part of a definition of connected or coherent.)

Old SMN had DoTs that weren't connected to the rest of its kit. Egi-Assaults that weren't connected to the rest of the kit. Ruin 4 that derived from Egi-Assaults for......no one knows (this is just as disjointed as New SMN's generation of Ruin 4, not somehow better). Bahamut was disjointed from Phoenix. Aetherflow STILL made no lore sense for Summoner and was just this weird thing on the side, especially once it was removed from DWT. None of the systems were connected or tied together other than DWT leading into Bahamut. Ruin 4 was used under Bahamut but had no connection to it. Egi-Assaults were used in the filler for movement but had no connection to DWT or FBT, and only had a connection to Bahamut indirectly. Aetherflow and Fester weren't connected to DWT, FBT, Bhamaut, or Egis, were only connected to the DoTs through one ability (Fester), and only vaguely connected to DWT and FBT via Tri-Disaster being refreshed by them (but T-D existed independent of DWT and FBT, so it's only a tenuous connection).

New SMN, everything's connected and continuous other than Energy Drain/Fester, which is kind of a side game like AST Cards that isn't connected to the main system.

Old SMN, DoTs weren't connected to anything other than Fester, Aetherflow wasn't connected to anything except DoTs ONLY WHEN using Fester, Bahamut wasn't connected to anything, Egis weren't connected to anything, and DWT and FBT were only connected to each other via shared CD, and loosely to Tri-Disaster which also existed by itself over to the side.

Old SMN was very much more disjointed, if we're using the definition of "not connected, coherent, or continuous". You can bask in the 12 people that can read a definition then upvote a thing that violates that very definition, but it's still wrong.

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Again, admitting New SMN is less disjointed than Old SMN doesn't make New SMN better. It's not some admission that New SMN is amazing. It's just an admission of reality. /shakeshead

Also, you keep doing the stupid thing. It's not a failure as the kit works fine and the Job is the most popular with players of all the Casters. The word you're looking for there is success. It's okay to say "I don't like something". That's fine. you can say that.

What I'm annoyed with is you lying.

Fist of all,
Wall of text with a lot of misconceptions

First of all, ShB SMN was disjointed.

That's the point.

The thing is, it wasn't BAD. This is what you both are misunderstanding. A thing can be more disjointed YET STILL BE GOOD. Just as a thing can be less disjointed YET STILL BE BAD. It's okay to admit a thing isn't the worst thing every in EVERY POSSIBLE WAY AT ONCE, you know?

Also, you aren't reading my posts, then. I played Old SMN. And as I've said many times, I liked Old SMN. I get you're now just all jumping on me because you don't want to say New SMN has anything going for it. Because for some reason, people seem to think "If I admit a thing I don't like has anything at all good about it, this will somehow surrender my entire position". It...doesn't And the "well, you just read a website and didn't know what you were doing or are trolling"?

Really?

I'm surprised you didn't call my mother fat along with that stupidity.

ou said it all. There is basically no system to manage, that's why the job is braindead as it is. And that's why we're complaining about it.

Yeah, but this is the point: It can't be disjointed if there's nothing really to BE disjointed!

I'm trying to get you guys to stop with the kitchen sink insults of "everything and anything negative must be true about New SMN". It turns out it has a few positives to it - other than "braindead", if one considers that a positive (you clearly do not). Sometimes, you may dislike a thing, but should learn to admit when it has things that are in its favor. That's how one can actually prove they know what they're talking about, when they can admit the good things about a thing they oppose, but explain why those don't make up for the bad and it's still a net loss overall.

It's intellectually lazy to just say everything possible about it is bad and resist any argument as "Wall of text".

There aren't disparate systems...if there aren't systems. Old SMN WAS more disparate than New SMN. The question isn't that. The question is if disparate was better or not. Make that argument instead: It at least has merit.

I disagree on this point. I will say, overall, I really like the general direction that we are trying to take SMN in, but unhappy with the execution. It just is very inflexible and feels like the kit is unfinished and empty right now, but is otherwise a good foundation for something more. ShB SMN was the most disjointed of all iterations by far. It felt like the kitchen sink job--a garage sale of many different pieces that have no interaction with one another outside of specific, isolated combinations. SB SMN was very punishing, but I think that was peak SMN experience. It felt way more cohesive than ShB's smoothie challenge headache.

Bingo.

Perfectly well said.

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Old SMN was less disjointed, but you can absolutely argue that was a benefit. Using disjointed as a pejorative is just silly, especially since it applies more to Old SMN than New SMN.

And we also have to consider this mechanically and thematically.

Mechanically, Old SMN was more disjointed than New SMN, but thematically...Old SMN was HORRIBLY more disjointed than New SMN. Say what you will about New SMN, it knows it's a Summoner and that's what it does. Old SMN couldn't decide if it was a plague mage, a pet mage, a channeler (DWT was basically SMN channeling Bahamut), or a Summoner (or a whatever-the-heck-Aetherflow-was-er). New SMN very clearly has the Summoner thing going for it, and is thematically consistent on that point with only one major (Energy Drain) and one miner (Sub-Job: Channeler) deviation.. And unlike Old SMN with DWT/Bahamut, the Primals/Favors seems like the Primals are granting you favor to channel their powers, while Old SMN kinda just...had DWT...there.

[ty_taurus]

I get what you mean. The time I had my most fun with SMN was by the end of Heavensward and during Stormblood. If we compare ShB SMN with SB SMN I completely agree that SB was better. It was a shame the Egis didn't work because their abilities were nice. Rouse, Radiant Shield, Earthen Ward, Contagion... I miss those.

I proposed something like that and other things in another thread about future hopes of caster. It was like that about I/G/T filling the gem gauge, the difference is that instead of Bahamut/Phoenix it would give access to a repurposed Tri-disaster ability and expend all gems after using it and reset the summons (or shift, if more summons are added). There I decoupled the 3 summons from Bahamut/Phoenix but it could work as gathering the gems to summons the big ones and makes more sense in this order.

I'd say I prefer this SMN over ShB SMN, but that comes with a caveat. As I mentioned, I like the direction of this SMN, but not the execution, and I think what makes me like this iteration more than the last is that I have more hope for its potential and too much distain for how disconnected Aetherflow and Egis were from the actual act of summoning from ShB, but that's also not a very fair take--to like something for what it might be vs what it actively was.

This SMN is an incomplete puzzle, and a part of that may very well have been intentional. There is a lot of room to build on this SMN over the next 10 years without running into another design ceiling. The garden was overgrown, and the solution was the gut it, then replant only half the garden. On some level, it makes sense, but they could've left the DoTs and old Tri-Disaster, and with a little tweaking to the current arrangement, it may have felt more complete, even if still inflexible with the summons as they are right now. Because even if they don't fit into the future picture, you can always remove them when you're ready to replace them with something more in line with the job's new direction. That's how I foresee Aetherflow going.

I have a few ideas for things that we might see in the coming expansions. Something others have brought up is having Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva replace Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda for one use each after summoning Bahamut or Phoenix perhaps, so you'd have a rotation of say Baha > Levi > Ramuh > Shiva > Phoenix > Titan > Ifrit > Garuda > Repeat, or something. Frankly, I cannot imagine R/L/S existing independently of I/T/G as six different variations of DPS just does not fit within the the rules of how this game works. Having a 4th summon of some kind I can see where there's one additional choice of flexibility, but not three. Maybe not exactly as I've written it, but something along those lines seems like the most realistic way to ever get the other 3.

Beyond that I could also see Alexander being a separate action that can be substituted for Bahamut or Phoenix on a 3 minute cooldown or so for a hyper DPS phase where you get to summon Bismarck and Ravana as two longer summon phases in lead up to your next Bahamut/Phoenix, though that seems like more of an 8.0 thing if at all.