Summoner got destroyed this patch

[Wolfenkritter]

I understand what SE was trying to do. Make SMN better AOE and worse ST to allow MNK and BLM to better compete single target.

I was under the impression the reason for Blizzard II to become CC, was to act more of a situational panic button for when you get surrounded rather than an actual AoE damage skill. Probably relevant to WHM/SCH and PvP... but pretty much worthless on a SMN since, again, they have Tri-Disaster for that.

The SMN's AoE potential will remain unchanged. The only difference is they just can no longer cleave Thunder across multiple enemies in-between using Bane or Shadow Flare.

[T0rin]

His original quarry was, is Thunder's loss worth (nerfed) Blizzard II going in? It's Thunder vs B2, not Ruin vs B2.

And the answer to that is a question: How many targets will you be hitting? After a point, B2 will out-DPS Thunder multi-DoTing.

And another question: How long will the targets remain alive? If the duration is too short, B2 will easily out-DPS Thunder multi-DoTing.

[Kalandros]

I understand what SE was trying to do. Make SMN better AOE and worse ST to allow MNK and BLM to better compete single target. But heres the thing, you took a SMN into coil because though they had no real advantages in burst dps checks, their overall great DMG made up for it. Now that BLM and SMN will be roughly competitive ST dmg, AND even though SMN might be better at AOE (there are very few endgame situations where AOE is truly a challenge), might as well just Go/Bring BLM for all circumstances. Seems all SE looked at was what they wanted certain job roles to be, not how it translated to overall endgame need.

All I read here is uninformed assumptions
All I read here is boring whining without anything to back up the claims

BLM is getting their own balancing with the fixing of umbral/astral and mana so that they can't do their usual burst tricks. They still have burst, just less frequent
SMN is getting their own balancing with removing a THM dot.


Twintania pull used to go, on the 3 scourges:

BLM opens up on one then triple flares the lot
SMN dots one up, (I like to miasma II the lot before contagion), Contagion, Banes, shadow flares, spend your Aetherflow stacks, get another 3 stack and use it up if you want, dot up twintania while your dots are up on the 3 scourges

So far you haven't needed to ruin spam.

Also pushing Twintania to drop the first Neurolink is all dependent on the DOTs I put - we call dps to stop at 89% right after a Death Sentence. When DPS is called to stop - I open up all my dots + contagion and shadow flare and then we wait for the ~10 second mark before DS for everyone to continue DPS and push her to drop neurolink and do a Death sentence before the first meteor - this way, the MT can go in each conflag to avoid death sentence for the entire conflag phase and only worry about virus during Twisters and the last phase.

I don't know about you, but I quite enjoy this way of controlling the DPS. I got my role in my group.

Things will be slightly different for Twintania with the Virus nerf, but other than that, my own role is unchanged.

[T0rin]

I understand what SE was trying to do. Make SMN better AOE and worse ST to allow MNK and BLM to better compete single target. But heres the thing, you took a SMN into coil because though they had no real advantages in burst dps checks, their overall great DMG made up for it. Now that BLM and SMN will be roughly competitive ST dmg, AND even though SMN might be better at AOE (there are very few endgame situations where AOE is truly a challenge), might as well just Go/Bring BLM for all circumstances. Seems all SE looked at was what they wanted certain job roles to be, not how it translated to overall endgame need.

But BLM will still not be competitive in ST damage, and MNK will only be competitive in fights that involve a lot of pure stand-up DPS. (T1 and T2)

[Shadowsend]

I would be ok with the thunder removal if they had given us something in return. Blizz 2 is not a good exchange. Now if they had removed the target cap of Bane I wouldn't even care about losing thunder. If SE really wanted to give us more AoE capability they should buffed Bane. Blizz 2 will not work for any sort of AoE spam simply because you will go OoM too fast. My biggest expectation for this whole patch was a buff to Bane and it just wasn't there (increase in range is negligible). Them removing Thunder was just a kick in the egi's. Uncalled for and uneeded. Every caster class already has some sort of bind and an AoE spell. Not one class will benefit from blizz2 period.

[Nemhy]

You guys are forgetting BLM biggest nerf that was stated in the patch notes because it was a bug fix.....Mana Regen now is sync with umbral buffs, no more double flare or additional hasted spells.

so BLM loses some power in WPSR while summoner loses power throughout the whole game. :V

[Nux]

So .. SMN will go extinct now ? unless suddenly ... BAM!! Aero

[pandabearcat]

Look what you all did, you made kevee mad.

I tried to read a lot of the arguments here but it just seems like a lot of back and forth on whether SMN was "destroyed" or, whether it "needed a nerf" or whatever.

I think most of you glossed over Kevee's main points, which are also the points I've been trying to convey.

Mathematically, this is a single target (and cleave) dps loss of around 7.5%, maybe more depending on contagion use and whether you multidot with it or not. It is also a mana efficiency loss, but not a mana usage gain. What I mean by that is, over the course of X seconds, you will use less MP, but if you had to deal Y damage, you would spend more of it now than before.

So this kinda sucks. But summoners are still usable.

The boots change is similar in effect, albeit on an even smaller scale. Anyone who thinks moving some stats around will destroy their dps is really, really falling into the MMO trap, where they make you think your incremental upgrades are extremely important. They aren't.

But it is the rationale behind the nerfs that is problematic.

Taking away cross class skills just makes it, well, boring, and completely against the only thing that makes this game unique, which is the customizability of your skillset through cross classing. This, sucks.

Making valor (oops, I mean myth) point gear better than drops is also a BAD thing, as it makes it a huge grind, rather than an accomplishment, to obtain your "BiS" gear. This is especially dumb because you can literally get EVERY piece of gear with myth (okay not your second ring, boohoo). This is...really...odd endgame progression, to say the least.

So obviously since I've never created any MMOs, I can't speak to what they're thinking. But as a player of many, I have to say, these changes suck, and aren't the right way to go about it.

That is what is worrying.

Also those that think the "interrupt on any direct damage" isn't going to completely destroy casters are very, very mistaken. Also, before you say "but pvp only skills", take a look at them, which of them gives you surecast?

Also, the "nerf" to sustain is...what? Like, why? How? What? When? Who?

I don't even know what question to ask about that change. What...necessitated it? What is the point of the "change"? Was it thematic? I really, really don't understand that one, at all.

[Shikiseki]

I'd Shadow Flare + Miasmara + Tri-Disaster any day instead of using Blizzard II, I refuse to use it >:E

Thunder for Blizzard II is a really bad trade, I'd rather pick up the 100 Potency Scathe to use as a RuinII substitute but I guess not.

[horaiyo]

So this kinda sucks. But summoners are still usable.

Usable, yes, but now the question is whether it's worth sticking with the class or whether a swap to blm is a better idea (for pve anyway, I'm still expecting us to be extremely competitive in pvp). I'm kind of undecided, so I guess we'll see how things play out once the patch goes live.