Huge SMN nerf: we're losing Thunder

[Mihael_Longclaw]

"Let's nerf the crap out of BRD and SMN, and make Monks OP as shit... I feel like Warriors need to be balanced though"

[Ryuko]

Like others, I am not happy about these changes. Thunder was an important part of my rotation, and it added a decent amount of DPS. The loss of Thunder isn't SO bad when you think about AoE damage (Thunder won't spread with Bane), but it is a big deal on single target and 'burst' situations. It's going to be problematic when we can't put out as much damage as we used to be able to. Keep in mind that Contagion lengthened the DoT, so people saying "just make up for it with more Ruins" likely aren't accounting for that.

The boots nerf is just the nail in the coffin. Fortunately, I already had the SMN boots from back when I couldn't get the Allagan Boots to drop... and now that they finally have, they get nerfed. The 'best in slot' body pieces for SMN were AFv2 Head/Body/Hands and Allagan Legs/Feet. Now they are AFv2 Head/Body/Hands/Feet and Allagan Legs (assuming you are going for Acc cap, which you should be, because Acc is important). That's ONE body Allagan piece that's better than AFv2...

Summoner is a class that has a lot of utility. I love the fact that I can pull out Titan in situations where it matters and it actually saves the party. I like that I can start healing (not very effectively) on the fly. I am very happy that I have status effect cooldowns (Eye for an Eye, Virus, etc). Our utility is awesome, but parties aren't going to see it that way. They're going to think... "What's the best DPS? Who can throw out the most damage?" And they will want THAT person. I take pride in my ability to play SMN. My DPS usually outdoes others... But, will this nerf make me, even a 'skilled' person, underneath them? Only time will tell.

I would also like to mention one thing:

"When multiple characters are playing the same class/job in a party, the gauge for level 2 and level 3 limit breaks will now fill more slowly than before."

This is basically their attempt at preventing class stacking... but that's only if you actually care about the level 2 or level 3 limit break.

I am extremely disappointed in this very clear nerf, but I will continue to play Summoner and see how it does. I'm not going to give up on it just yet.

One other 'theory' I have is that the removal of Thunder was an attempt at balancing PvP encounters. Who knows, though.

[Orihara_Izaya]

[Nageki]

I agree with Ryuko, this is indeed a nerf in some sense and I am not happy about it. The following are my responses to each "nerf".

The thunder nerd despite what people are saying is NOT the end of the world. We are summoners, we can have mana issues and the fact thunder costs so much for so little is not at all worth it. I took thunder off my hot bar once I hit lvl 50 tbh. I do however understand the frustration with the cross class skills. We are losing one of the only few that are "viable" (and I use that term VERY loosely)We get swift cast, raging strikes,sure cast and that's pretty much it now. Quailing strikes is useless to us because we don't put out enough hate in most situations to benefit from it properly. Hawks eye is actually viable since it will allow ALL skills to hit guaranteed. If you have less then 428 acc in coil and you want to burst down targets with fester and raging on.

[Nageki]

The virus nerf is a bit more of a thing though. The fact it's 60 seconds long is pretty crazy. Also, the fact other classes can cast the skill (not saying it's bad other classes can but if they don't have the trait then ya know). If this was 30 seconds I could understand but a full minute? That is pretty crazy and I do not agree with it.

The pet change. I don't really know how this will pan out honestly, but I will add if you should NOT only spam Garuda. Ifrit is better in all ways even with Garuda's contagion. You can however start the battle with Garuda dot,contagion then swift cast Ifirit. (If you're swift cast is not taken for another thing and I would only with a bard in you're party). If you don't use Ifirit more I implore you to give it a try.

The shadow flare "nerf"... This sucks but come on guys, we all know that was op. it should have done this from the get go.

[Nageki]

The Allagan boots of casting nerf is one of the worst impo. I mean just look at this.
llagan Boots of Casting
Before: INT+18, VIT+18, Critical Hit Rate+21, Accuracy+15
After: INT+18, VIT+18, Spell Speed+21, Determination+11
That is terrible I mean really, come on now SE, they should change our Myth boots to something of that nature both add spell speed now which is completely useless to summoners.

TL;DR version.
Thunder removal- Not the end of the world.
Virus Nerf- This honestly REALLY sucks and should be looked in to further or given are larger reason why.
Pet fix- Only time will tell with this one.
Allagan boot nerf- NOPE one of the worst nerfs so far.

[Nageki]

All in all, you combine all of this with the fact summoner and even scholar are the two least played classes in the game and there you go. Do I think this patch will make me main another class? No, I feel as though summoner is still a pretty good class. It did not deserve most of these nerfs but it is still VERY viable in any dungeon comp for it's utility. With all that said don't give up on you're jobs young summoners, summoners are still viable. Damn SE and it's 1000 character limit...

[Annie]

Dear SE:

Transition from V1.0 to V2.0 already a huge item nerf for all the 1.0 players, countless gils and time investment are all wasted for little gain, changing coil T 5 weapon to Ilevel 95 are acceptable, not once, twice. but 3 times, changing in game item and play rule for a PAY MMO = unhappy player, mind you this isn't Diablo II, you can't just get level 99 character in a day.

For you best advice, don't release something that you will change it in a month or two, give yourself a minute and think like a player, the reason game is running is cause there is real people paying real money to keep the game running.

[EvokerKeii]

Losing Thunder is part of our DPS.
Losing Allagan Boots is also a stacking part of our DPS.
Bane "buff" is not really a buff. It still only hits 3 targets which makes the range boost insignificant. Rarely do I run into a situation where I can't spread my dots to all 3 other targets. Losing the chance at refreshing duration is a DPS loss.

Blizzard 2 is okay, it'd be nice to have without losing something else, but it doesn't make up for it. It's a slightly different version of Tri-Disaster.
Tri-Disaster: 3s cast, 2.5s recast, 266 mp, 25y range, 5y radius, 30 potency, 20s bind
Blizzard 2: 2s cast, 2.5s recast, 212 mp, 0y range, 5y radius, 50 potency, 4s bind, does not grant umbral ice
Miasma 2: Instant cast, 2.5s recast, 186 mp, 0y range, 5y radius, 20 potency, 10 potency over 15s
So Blizzard 2 is a little stronger but requires you be in melee range and has a shorter bind time while Tri-Disaster has a longer cast time and can be cast at a distance and has a longer duration but is lower damage. For comparison's sake I threw our close range aoe up there too.
It's redundant to have both spells.

[EvokerKeii]

TL;DR version.
Thunder removal- Not the end of the world.
Virus Nerf- This honestly REALLY sucks and should be looked in to further or given are larger reason why.
Pet fix- Only time will tell with this one.
Allagan boot nerf- NOPE one of the worst nerfs so far.

"Pet Fix"
I don't know how this affects us.
If we set it to manually cast then we have to micromanage our pet and manually cast ALL the spells. If we set it to auto cast, it's going to autocast all the spells, which means Contagion is still going to go up sometimes when we don't have all our dots or have no dots at all.