SMN is now the least popular caster again barely one expansion after its rework

[Azurarok]

I can kinda understand them not wanting to use Hydaelyn given how much Venat's been through (though was it that Gem Summons are just carbuncles taking on their form? Kinda hard to know without job quests to explain things), but even then there's other major summons they could've taken, like Alexander or Odin, the latter of which even has a magicite in HoH.

[LoganMccree]

I think everyone should lose res because the devs make better fights without it. As seen in BA and DRS. Like, unironically, the devs only having the lever of damage down and killing players is simply bad for the game's encounter design. Not the only thing bad, but a big part of it.

They will never make such a bold move. The "improved encounter design" they promised didn't happen. Or if it did it amounts to slightly faster DDR. FF14 players got Stockholm'd into thinking that body checks in virtually every high-level encounter is the norm and default, and don't realize how damaging it is to the game.

Keep in mind they use damage down because they hate player creativity. They hated that people were soaking vuln ups on shit like O6S's flame to get some uptime. They hated that speedrunners* figured out cool tricks to get a few extra GCDs in. They hated that as players themselves they need to resort to "unnatural" techs to compete on FFLogs. This whole game is now chained to the whims of FFLogs Discord dwellers who hate anything that isn't ultra-scripted choreography. I have no doubt the job and encounter designers are part of them (in mentality at the very least). The body checks are there to force you to do the same choreography everyone must follow.

There's a reason why jobs get gutted over and over again and funneled into the same style. It's because there are only a few job designers, and the entire playerbase and game must bow down to their idiosyncratic preferences. They don't design for you. They design for themselves. That's why healers were gutted first, because the job design team are DPS mains who hated that they had to use GCD heals and not do damage. That's why certain jobs like monk get a lobotomy every expansion because the team hated how it played. They hate you as a player when you don't do what they want. That's why they keep trying to gut nonstandard Black Mage, that's why they gutted TK monk. It's why they gutted Summoner because they hated that they didn't foresee that old SMN optimization involved in large part the interplay between pet animations and pet movement (which emergently created a playstyle of stutter-stepping during Bahamut windows).

*I speak of the ancient species of speedrunners who actually enjoyed pushing for speedkills using unconventional strats which often increased the difficulty of the encounter, not of the modern variety of crit-farming brainrotten parse-andies.

[Manamaru]

So yeahhhhhhh SMN is now a distant last in popularity amongst the casters with every other Carter having near twice the amount of clears and RDM having almost 4 times the clears (it’s even the least popular in casual dungeons and in the alliance raid)

Is this a sign that the rework was a failure? Or that reworks based on popularity aren’t always the most important thing?

How do they justify SMN’s changes as good in the longer term if all it took was one new caster and a few balance changes to send it to the bottom again

Them also hemming and hawing about removing the revival while giving you a FF16/yugioh looking bahamut likely didn't do well for the people wanting to put in a lot of time into leveling, especially if they're relying on it to be a backup rez. And picto introduced a way to alternate doing your 3~5 summons in a rotation.

[Daralii]

I can kinda understand them not wanting to use Hydaelyn given how much Venat's been through (though was it that Gem Summons are just carbuncles taking on their form? Kinda hard to know without job quests to explain things), but even then there's other major summons they could've taken, like Alexander or Odin, the latter of which even has a magicite in HoH.

Solar Bahamut's already supposed to be a standin for her. The idea is that the more advanced summons are just mindless constructs we can make because we were exposed to a lot of their aether, and word of god is that Venat's soul completely fell apart after the trial and can't possibly be reconstituted.

[Kozh]

Solar Bahamut's already supposed to be a standin for her. The idea is that the more advanced summons are just mindless constructs we can make because we were exposed to a lot of their aether, and word of god is that Venat's soul completely fell apart after the trial and can't possibly be reconstituted.

Hm, a bit of weak excuse. While her soul is *gone* gone, we have been exposed to her aether via blessing of light since forever. To the point where past Venat immediately recognize her own signature. With bahamut and phoenix, having the WoL experience 7th rejoining is already enough for them to get bathed in their aether even though the event was short lived. Plus I am not sure demi summon requires (part of) the soul of the summoned.

[PercibelTheren]

Strangely enough, there's people out there who insist SMN and RDM should lose their Raise thinking they'll be compensated with more damage, thus putting them on par with BLM and PCT.

The thing is though... people thought the same would happen with MCH, than in not having group buffs, it would get loads more damage. Shock of shocks, this didn't come to pass, and now you have people wanting MCH to be turned into a buffer if its not going to get the damage it's expected to have.

But yeah, without that utility for double rez, RDM would probably be in a bad spot, and ironically its ability to do said double rez just ends up one more punch into SMN's gut because it wasn't even allowed to hold onto THAT novelty for its self. (And Physick is literally a wasted hotbar slot.)

Those people are delusional and the existence of Pictomancer proves it. For years, the argument has been "utility justifies lower damage" and then you have Picto who came out with hilariously busted damage AND amazing group utility. Or the fact that melees now get AoE healing in addition to raid buffs while being allowed to have the highest damage output despite there being very little downtime AND every raid strat being tailored for their uptime. There is no good reason for the questionable balance.

[GumshoeJump]

Everyone suggesting just adding another set of gem summons are driving me a little nuts actually! As if that's the problem with the job-- not enough variety in the meaninglessly different summons you have.

The core central issue with the job like a lot of others at the moment is the mechanics don't really mean anything. All the gem summons are just potency buttons that give you slightly different buttons to press. There's no prepping for the next step of your rotation like there was in 5.x. There's no real actual reason you have an egi/carbuncle companion, besides the fact that removing it is way more work than just leaving it as a dummy NPC. Ruin IV is a Joke. And energy drain feels like it only remains because it'd be embarrassingly obvious how little the job has to offer if you take it out. Additional gem summons are just more of the same and they'd feel just as insulting as solar bahamut did. Nothing in the kit feels like it needs anything else in the kit-- like toys laid out on a blanket instead of the components of a well-built piece of machinery.

But those mechanical reasons don't matter really-- though I suppose this is a symptom of those mechanical issues. The job just no longer fills a niche. Niches are actually really important! Niches get you dedicated players and people who will always stick with the job no matter whether or not it's meta. SMN used to fill the niche of a pet job alongside its DoT focus-- something you can't find anymore unless you count its healer counterpart. Now its only real distinguishing feature is the fact it has?? What? No seriously what does it have that no other caster has? Summons? Those are just loud aoe abilities that frequently don't go through because they're obligated to use a proxy to cast them. It has the demi-summons I guess? But those are glorified turrets that just need to come off cooldown-- they don't really feel like much. You don't have to approach them in a way that stands out from anything else in the game or even your own kit.

I just don't think the solution is something that will amount to no tangible change in how the job plays or interacts with its own kit. Without changing the above issues the only real solution is potency buffs which sound positively miserable as a solution; just creates an arms race between it and every other job currently suffering the same issue of being nicheless.

Maybe I'm biased but I do think old pet-job DoTmage SMN was the version of SMN that actually worked in an MMO. It's a job type I really like! I was sad when they decided everything I liked about the job was a horrible flaw in need of completely razing it to the ground and salting the earth about it.

[LoganMccree]

Those people are delusional and the existence of Pictomancer proves it. For years, the argument has been "utility justifies lower damage" and then you have Picto who came out with hilariously busted damage AND amazing group utility. Or the fact that melees now get AoE healing in addition to raid buffs while being allowed to have the highest damage output despite there being very little downtime AND every raid strat being tailored for their uptime. There is no good reason for the questionable balance.

Not only that, but for years we had "they have to homogenize jobs so they can balance the jobs well!!!!!"

[Zarkovitch]

You know why smn is not popular anymore. It's not the design of the job, it's just a ass job. Why picking smn when there a picto and blm for dmg. rdm for progging savages slight better dmg nowdays. The reason why SMN was more pick in EW.

1. RDM was weakest of caster dmg due RNG damage.
2. In EW SMN as no competitions was always facto number 2 due dmg and support ability.
3. BLM was doing dmg, sure but gotta put the effort, time and skill to be good at it.

Currently SMN is doing not good and hater of reworks just want to point it up because they re wet dream finally realise can shit talk about it.

[Derio]

The rework shine has worn off. However it shouldnt be that low in DPS.