Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[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.