Make SMN great again, or not

[serawawa]

I am done.

I get that everyone wants their jobs to do more damage but for what, even easier clears on content? There's a need for a bigger adjustment than just buffing jobs and nerfing PCT. For example what does SMN have left compared to the other casters?

"SMN has raise and heals!!!"
- RDM has better raise.
- Healers aren't even needed as it is today and the heals are dogshit.

And for the rest of you all thinking "SMN is such an easy job, it's in a good place"
DPS race me.

Among the billion BLM mains crying in their threads, I reach out, from a forgotten job..
Hoping for a change.

Talking about removing SMN raise for years, like just do it already if it's something that's planned eventually. Why the constant wait? If it turns out to be a horrible change, just revert it. While you're at it, might as well remove the heals too. It's a nice thought to give it a broader kit but it's totally useless. Having the newest Ultimate cleared without healers just speaks about the state of the game. It should be impossible.

Waiting over half a year to nerf PCT when it was clear that it was outdpsing every other job with ease? Then heavily apologizing for the nerf? Barely buffing other jobs while refusing to nerf PCT and instead making more content easily clearable. For what? A healthy state of the game?

I know there's no easy quick fix but I just wish for more experimentation or the courage to actually implement changes at a somewhat frequent pace.

Conclusion: Remove useless SMN kit and make it a worthy competitor to other casters if you don't want to overhaul the entire job system. If buffing every other job is on the agenda at least give SMN a place to be. Since DPS checks aren't a thing anymore anyway.

The game is extremely unhealthy.

[Supersnow845]

What would be unhealthy is allowing a job as barebones and easy as SMN to do respectable damage. Like PCT isn’t gigabrained but it does actually have a skill ceiling

SMN needs to have some complexity added to it before it’s worthy to do anything more than what it does, raise or no raise

[serawawa]

I'm fine with more complexity but are you really saying PCT requires a brain? That RDM is much harder to play than SMN? The only caster in another league is BLM and they are ruining that too. Yes SMN is easy but it's not like other jobs are hard.

[Supersnow845]

I'm fine with more complexity but are you really saying PCT requires a brain? That RDM is much harder to play than SMN? The only caster in another league is BLM and they are ruining that too. Yes SMN is easy but it's not like other jobs are hard.

There is a difference between “easy” or medium difficulty and whatever SMN is

PCT isn’t gigabrained but does have a lot of avenues of optimisation, same as RDM

This isn’t easy vs hard jobs this is “average job vs complete void of a job”

[Khryseis_Astra]

I would add that our heals are often made useless because of the narrow window in which they’re available. So many times where Lux would have been useful about 5-10 seconds after it expired. I’d like to keep it active until I summon the next Demi. Physick needs to scale with INT for SMN, to give it the usefulness of a Second Wind at least, because as of now it’s useless.

As for the raise… we have 4 casters now. 2 can raise and 2 can’t. That seems balanced to me, and both RDM and SMN have job lore that supports them having that ability. I might not agree with the “rez tax” being as much as it is, but if you’re going to take away my rez, I better be getting much higher potencies. I like having the rez, so its removal needs to be offset by something worth me losing it. They could probably throw me 3 shiny new gems… in fact they should do that anyway!

PCT… honestly I’m kinda disappointed they went the nerf route instead of just buffing the other casters. PCT right now feels like the best designed job. Are there little nickpicks here and there? Sure! But overall it feels like a complete job, with plenty of room to add new skills that will make sense within its framework (ie: canvas motifs), without creating button bloat. SMN could be like that, but they keep adding Demis instead of gems.

[serawawa]

There is a difference between “easy” or medium difficulty and whatever SMN is

PCT isn’t gigabrained but does have a lot of avenues of optimisation, same as RDM

This isn’t easy vs hard jobs this is “average job vs complete void of a job”

I agree there's a difference but absolutely not a big difference.

[serawawa]

PCT… honestly I’m kinda disappointed they went the nerf route instead of just buffing the other casters. PCT right now feels like the best designed job. Are there little nickpicks here and there? Sure! But overall it feels like a complete job, with plenty of room to add new skills that will make sense within its framework (ie: canvas motifs), without creating button bloat. SMN could be like that, but they keep adding Demis instead of gems.

Are you serious? Do you really think the game would benefit if every caster did as much dps as PCT? It's very overpowered compared to the content we have.

[Carighan]

I'm fine with more complexity but are you really saying PCT requires a brain? That RDM is much harder to play than SMN? The only caster in another league is BLM and they are ruining that too. Yes SMN is easy but it's not like other jobs are hard.

I dread to think someone genuinely thinks BLM is tougher to play to a noteworthy or even recognizable degree, too.

Whether you press optimal static rotation X or Y on jobs A or B does not truly make a difference. And there's so much instant cast and tools nowadays, there's a reason there exists a good-enough all-instant-casts BLM rotation. That argument stopped holding water a while ago.

They're all terminally boring to play. That's kinda the point, the gameplay is in the encounter design not the classes. No DPS job is remotely complex in gameplay, and few of them were in past expansions, and usually not for good reasons.

[serawawa]

I dread to think someone genuinely thinks BLM is tougher to play to a noteworthy or even recognizable degree, too.

Whether you press optimal static rotation X or Y on jobs A or B does not truly make a difference. And there's so much instant cast and tools nowadays, there's a reason there exists a good-enough all-instant-casts BLM rotation. That argument stopped holding water a while ago.

They're all terminally boring to play. That's kinda the point, the gameplay is in the encounter design not the classes. No DPS job is remotely complex in gameplay, and few of them were in past expansions, and usually not for good reasons.

I agree it's not a big difference, which is what I'm trying to say. What I meant in my earlier reply was that BLM was at least more minmax and it actually required a brain to optimize your nonstandard button clicking. But since they already started removing that in DT it's falling to the other jobs, skill wise. But yeah I would want them to go the opposite direction but it doesn't look that way.

[SubmarineAlt]

Fact of the matter is that going SMN is griefing. Not only yourself by playing a job with no advantage what so ever, but it also griefs everyone because Square clearly sees playrate as "successful" or "needs changes" depending on popularity. The act of equipping the SMN job alone means SMN will never see meaningful changes.

Also, lots of talk on "easier" or "harder" casters. But none of those people are taking those options in order to have an easier time clearing the content (that they struggle with). Curious.