IS NEW SMN A JOKE?

[Iedarus]

SMN is now Bahamut mage and SCH is now Seraph mage. It's rough out here...

[Valence]

To add a bit onto this thought, it's also disingenuous to think SMN is well-loved in hard content.
SMN is used in Savage and Ultimates because it's easy. It drastically reduces the likelihood of failure, and is very permissive regarding recovery.
A lot of people will compromise on what's "fun" to get the clear done with (which is why they usually reclear on alt jobs). SMN, specifically, is in a relatively hard role (RDM and BLM are both difficult jobs- BLM, in fact, has had the biggest gap from the 25% to 50% percentiles and from 50% to 75% for a few years now). That means it becomes even more attractive to pick it up to speed up prog.
The jump in relative ease from going to, say, DRG to RPR or MCH to DNC compared to BLM to SMN is much smaller.
I'm not saying everyone doesn't like SMN, either, I'm saying the SMN numbers, especially in hard content, are skewed because it's the path of least resistance (by a huge margin).

This is also why I've always said that current SMN is actually toxic to the raiding scene overall, not only for the points you brought up (on the good caster players' side), but also for all the skill discrepancies it brings into raid groups, lazy players, players falling asleep because bored, and all the ones carried by their job that are a constant source of frustration within groups. Maybe I've had bad experiences though, but it's always been *that* SMN player in EW for me. And when it wasn't, it was a good player that swapped to the job for ease of purpose.

Anecdotal? Yeah sure. I don't have survey data beyond half the dps caster playerbase playing SMN (like half the rphys does DNC). Just my anecdotal experience.

[CasterSvarog]

To add a bit onto this thought, it's also disingenuous to think SMN is well-loved in hard content.
SMN is used in Savage and Ultimates because it's easy. It drastically reduces the likelihood of failure, and is very permissive regarding recovery.
A lot of people will compromise on what's "fun" to get the clear done with (which is why they usually reclear on alt jobs). SMN, specifically, is in a relatively hard role (RDM and BLM are both difficult jobs- BLM, in fact, has had the biggest gap from the 25% to 50% percentiles and from 50% to 75% for a few years now). That means it becomes even more attractive to pick it up to speed up prog.
The jump in relative ease from going to, say, DRG to RPR or MCH to DNC compared to BLM to SMN is much smaller.
I'm not saying everyone doesn't like SMN, either, I'm saying the SMN numbers, especially in hard content, are skewed because it's the path of least resistance (by a huge margin).

I feel the exact same way, not helping matters is how casters as a role was balanced in END, where BLM was at the top, then SMN and finally RDM for the longest time. RDM is significantly harder to play as a job then SMN is but it’s reward is being overall worse for the party’s dps then playing SMN. Especially when there’s so many more fights this go around that effectively wipe you if someone dies making chain Res not helpful.

[Galvuu]

I feel the exact same way, not helping matters is how casters as a role was balanced in END, where BLM was at the top, then SMN and finally RDM for the longest time. RDM is significantly harder to play as a job then SMN is but it’s reward is being overall worse for the party’s dps then playing SMN. Especially when there’s so many more fights this go around that effectively wipe you if someone dies making chain Res not helpful.

RDM doing less damage than SMN in EW was a crime, I agree. The job, on some fights and phases, had an even harder time than BLM with uptime.
I also agree with some takes in this thread about how SMN is a bit of a toxic design.
Caster damage is gated behind cast bars (hence the name we've given the role- "casters"). That's their primary design tenet. Melee is short range and, to a lesser extent, has positionals, casters have their cast bars and physical ranged have neither (their design hinges on their freedom to move around while executing their rotation).
SMN is, in essence, a phsyical ranged job in the caster role. I actually believe current SMN makes the caster role inherently impossible to balance.
If SMN does more damage than any other caster, that caster immediately becomes redundant because you always bring SMN, as it can move around freely and is much easier to execute. This is the issue with EW RDM, and BLM only escapes the same fate by virtue of its monstrous dps potential.
If SMN does the least job out of all casters and the fight design allow the other casters to have good uptime, then it's SMN that's useless (since XIV, sadly, only cares about damage).
If the fight design is awful for casters and they keep bleeding uptime by being forced to move around then, once again, SMN is preferable and the other casters are redundant.
The caster role, because of EW SMN, is in a spot where they need to balance a physical ranged job, a caster job and basically a pseudo selfish melee dps job (BLM). This is impossible to balance. I feel they dug themselves into a hole with casters with the EW SMN revision...

[DPZ2]

The caster role, because of EW SMN, is in a spot where they need to balance a physical ranged job, a caster job and basically a pseudo selfish melee dps job (BLM). This is impossible to balance. I feel they dug themselves into a hole with casters with the EW SMN revision...

This assumes that in most content outside of statics, the caster role is required. True Balance must include all DPS, not just casters. There is no 'caster-specific' slot in Duty Finder (or Party Finder).

[Galvuu]

This assumes that in most content outside of statics, the caster role is required. True Balance must include all DPS, not just casters. There is no 'caster-specific' slot in Duty Finder (or Party Finder).

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The game is designed around having 4 dps, one melee, one physical ranged, one caster and one free dps slot (could be any of the three).
Balance, for the dps role, comes in two parts- first, for each of the "required" dps role slots, each job should be sufficiently viable to fit that slot. Some may have more damage, some more utility, some better at prog, some better at speed killing, sure, but each should have a niche and be able to clear the content. This is what was being discussed- atm, RDM doesn't really have much of a niche (it has slightly more utility than SMN, but this isn't very significant with the current body-check heavy fight design).
Second, it should be possible to fill the last "free" dps slot with any of the three dps subroles. Again, like before, depending on the fight or goal it might be better to have one over the other, but all should be viable (XIV does a bit worse here since there's a clear melee preference, although, historically, some fights were more suited for two casters or even two ranged, if you look far back enough).

Also, the pf absolutely does let the party maker lock a slot to melee dps/phsyical ranged/caster dps only. And this is the vastly more popular configuration (especially because of the stat boost from having all different roles).
I do not want to go back to a time, like late HW and early SB, where the optimal comp was 2x melee and 2x phys ranged and casters had no reason to exist. And modern balance and fight design is absolutely done around having one of each dps subrole in the party.

[Ramiee]

I agree it's a huge slap in the face. Solar Bahamut is a fucking joke. I'm giving up playing the job until I see what they come up with in 8.0.

8.0
Lunar phoenix

[Galvuu]

8.0
Lunar phoenix

Ramie! You've not been keeping up with the recent SMN developments, have you?
Surely you meant Lunar Bahamut!

[CasterSvarog]

8.0
Lunar phoenix

My one genuine fear that they’ll do with 8.0 SMN

[Ramiee]

Ramie! You've not been keeping up with the recent SMN developments, have you?
Surely you meant Lunar Bahamut!

You expect lunar bahamut since theres a precedent CBU3 wants to hit you with the abysmal dogshit that you don't expect.