Thread: 2.4 SMN Class Issues

The Summoner is broken in terms of balance because there is no point in bringing them to Raids besides nerfing your party. The Summoner use to excel at single target damage over the Black Mage until the Black Mage got buff. Now the Black Mage excels at both Single Target and AoE Bursts Damage which leaves the Summoner with nothing. It's the WoW Warlock all over again where the main reason people didn't like the class was because it was mediocre in every area the Warlock didn't excel at anything it was in the game for no reason at all.

Originally Posted by Dinocat

Stuffs

Point on Raise - Yes, definitely in these endgame environments you can't really afford one person to die. But in saying that it is a huge DPS loss for Summoner to raise someone, is not quite right. Say a 10 minute fight if you had to raise two people. That's say 30 Aetherflow stacks and it takes close to 3 Energy Drains (266 MP) to recover from each Raise cast. So 6 Energy Drains, which leaves 24 for Fester. This totals out to be a 5 DPS loss over the course of the fight. (3000 Damage)

SMN DPS Breakdown (not including AA for overall %)
@ i110 using Fester alone is close to 50 DPS (11.6%)
Garuda is around 110 DPS (25%)
Ruin is around 80 DPS (18.6)
DoT's is around 190 DPS (including Shadow Flare) (44.2%)
AA is around 25 DPS with Ruin II Spam

Total 455 DPS (430 without AA)

Obviously this changes in multi-mob non-AOE situations where you are casting dots instead of Ruins.

But this would further push your DOT %
2 Mobs -> 48 DPS Ruin -> Around 300 DPS (Dots only)
3 Mobs -> 32 DPS Ruin -> Around 410 DPS (Dots only)

SMN AOE Potential
5 GCD = 150 Potency per 3s per 4 mobs (125 Potency per GCD equivalent)
Blizzard II 50 Potency per GCD

Total 175 Potency Per GCD (550 Damage) per mob 900 DPS - Not extremely terrible.

Originally Posted by Dinocat

-snip-

I enjoy your posts, very well made.

I do however disagree with one point. The current BLM is quite capable of out dpsing a SMN in the single target field on 1v1 scenarios. (Largely we can all agree due to the mana inefficiency of the SMN class, but that's more of a SMN retaining their Burst argument.) At current BLMs, have the utensils and the inate make up of class, to win big in every enviorment. They never run out of Mana while a SMN does. They excel in the 1 v 1 scenario, whereas a SMN is like you said majorly focused on single target scenarios. Largely I believe you stated it, or not so sure if it was lost somewhere in there but

"To conclude, the current BLM vs SMN DPS capabilities are balanced, and do not require a change. BLM doing more single target and better AoE are only trumped by SMN under 1 specified condition; when targets are separated beyond AoE range. This seems very fair a tradeoff to the nature and style of these 2 classes. "

What fight, has this setup atm? Anything you can Bane off of in FCOB, a BLM can Double Flare / Fire II.

T10 -> Sons/ Daughters, Dot up daughter, Contagion Bane (-> other AoE Dots on that set if you want to ) otherwise switch and dot the other side, BUT, this all changes once, your Sons and daughters start dying before your ticks even fully finish. and once again like you said, it ultimately means nothing if the BLM is winning in Both single Target AND AoE, which is whats currently happening. Your not even getting a full duration on all your DoTs on any given 3 Mobs at a time usually.

At one point SMNs at least reigned in the single target realm and that was balanced then. Why bring a SMN now if the utility they offer is borrowed by a BLM already with Virus( questionable for even overlapping this. Most healers mainly SCHS like to control Virus usage) and EoE (Both Share). Outside of Ressing (barely should see usage with all the punishing mechanics in FCOB and DPS loss), why bring a SMN? BLM is doing more DPS in both the Single Target and the AoE scenarios in generally all of FCOB. This is also ignoring the fact that gear optimization HIGHLY favors BLM in almost every single peice vs a SMN. How is this balanced?

The only fight that has what you pointed out, is FCOB T11, where a SMN can dot an Electric Node (contagion that), and a Gravity node where as a BLM in the same party could just sit on the Gravity node.

Granted like Kairi said before, there are more better then average SMNs then there are BLMs, but if were talking about people of equal skill of their classes, this becomes a relevant issue.


On an off tangent, the BLM vs SMN arguments atm at least ones I've presented, are akin to the DRG situation atm.

Why bring a Dragoon with some utility (and also less MDEF) when there is now a class that can do more utility AND more DPS?

Dragoons are not impacted the same way Summoners are because raid groups will always have two melees slots so they can still get spot in a End Game Raid. Their is only one caster slot in a raid group and the Black Mage automatically gets it. Every PF looking for FCOB static look exclusively for Black Mages. The Summoner issue in Final Fantasy XI has come to Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn Summoners are trash when it comes to End Game Raiding now.

The Black Mage excels in Sustained Single Target Burst and AoE Bursts. Nerfing the Black Mage's Single Target Damage will cause more problems among the community then it will solve. Maybe to balance it SE should make the Summoner excel at Single Target Spike Damage and AoE Spike Damage it's a fair trade off since the Black Mage now steps all over the Summoner in every area.