So BLM as AOE covered, MNK has single target... What does SMN bring?

[Lavieh]

The amount of people that say SMN is a sustained DMG class, Makes me cringe.

Damage from DOTS =/= Sustained DMG.

NIN/DRG and MNK deal better Sustained DMG than SMN.

SMN's DPS has a small RAMP up then falls continuously with every dot re-application through-out the fight.

[Sleigh]

The amount of people that say SMN is a sustained DMG class, Makes me cringe.

Damage from DOTS =/= Sustained DMG.

NIN/DRG and MNK deal better Sustained DMG than SMN.

SMN's DPS has a small RAMP up then falls continuously with every dot re-application through-out the fight.

To be fair it was true in 2.0 compared to the other DPS at the time, which might have stuck with people.

If I had to label SMN now, as what it's good at, I'd merely say it's a multi-DoT caster, much in the same way that I labeled 2.2 BLM an AoE Flare bot and nothing more. Unfortunately in T12 and T13, BLM is better at the situations where there are multiple targets, T11 has no meaningful two target situations (you can't do stuff to 2/3 of the adds without a DPS loss) and T10, the enemies don't live long enough or make up a large enough potion of the fight to make it better than a BLM merely Flaring a bit extra.

[JonnyBigBoss]

It's a ranged DPS with some support. It's pretty good.

[Shizuna]

There are other people, who don't main SMN, think it's a weak class for competitive progression. Like you're better off doing the double MNK cheese, and that's what the top 2 (maybe more did that too) world t13 clears did.

I have a friend who loves to play SMN, but for FCOB, his static forced him to change to BLM and he's in high-level FC. This is just an example of how SMN's are viewed currently in hardcore FC's and statics. No one wants them unless you're a really good SMN who can hold out your own, and even if you are, an equally good BLM can do everything better than a SMN. You have to play near perfectly to achieve really high numbers and SMN have quite some limitations right now. Their Enkindle is too long of a cd compare to, say, Convert, and the potency is lackluster for something that has a 5 minute cd. Then, you have a useless skill on Ifrit-egi, like Radiant Shield. There's no point in having that skill ever if it's not taking damage.. Speaking of another useless skill, Tri-disaster is also insignificant in anything and everything, except PvP, and the MP cost is dumb. Aetherflow stacks is also limiting down SMN's, too, cause for the first 3-4 minutes of a fight, you use all 3 stacks for Fester and then if the fight extends for longer, you gotta use energy drain once in a while cause that's the point where SMN's are on the verge of getting OOM. After that, the only thing keeping you up is putting DoT's up and if you miss putting up a couple of DoT's, then your damage will lower a bit, because for example, you had to dodge mechanics or move to deal with mechanics and couldn't cast your DoT's up.

Please, ignore past this point if you don't wanna hear me QQ:

Personally, I know I'm doing alright as SMN; I feel around kinda above average, but isn't at the exceptional level and will never be. I have cleared all of FCOB and so far my experience in it was a damn struggle cause I thought of myself as a dps hindrance to my static. I became frustrated at how much I was doing and thought it was my fault for not pushing through another Flatten or Megaflare in t13. Because of it, I didn't enjoy playing SMN anymore and so I'm just working on gearing up BLM, trying to get that zodiac weapon. I wanted to play NIN, but I haven't used any poetics on it and had less practice on it than BLM. Eventually in the future I'll play something else...

[Dextro]

The amount of people that say SMN is a sustained DMG class, Makes me cringe.

Damage from DOTS =/= Sustained DMG.

NIN/DRG and MNK deal better Sustained DMG than SMN.

SMN's DPS has a small RAMP up then falls continuously with every dot re-application through-out the fight.

SMN's DPS fluctuates very little throughout the entire fight, what word are you going to use to describe that?

No other DPS can sustain their numbers as well as SMN when it comes to dealing with mechanics or impromptu situations.
The jobs you listed are susceptible to a variety of things to make their dps take a sharp dive, such as: Dodging mechanics, running out of TP, travel time between enemies, invulnerable periods, denied access to positionals, activating the Limit Break and more.

[Sleigh]

SMN's DPS fluctuates very little throughout the entire fight, what word are you going to use to describe that?

No other DPS can sustain their numbers as well as SMN when it comes to dealing with mechanics or impromptu situations.
The jobs you listed are susceptible to a variety of things to make their dps take a sharp dive, such as: Dodging mechanics, running out of TP, travel time between enemies, invulnerable periods, denied access to positionals, activating the Limit Break and more.

True, on paper. However, in T10-13, BLM, who gets impacted terribly by mechanics, will still win even if targeted for mechanics (which is mainly limited to T10 Wild Charge capture, and T13 Earth shakers). That's part of the problem, that advantage SMN has doesn't bring the bonus well enough to make it win when it should, because the raw damage is too low, both from resources and from the damage (whatever the reason for this, bad stat weights, not enough PPS in their rotations, whatever, it's a bit too low, tested i135 SMN myself, pretty low compared to everyone else, very very close to BRD on a dummy) being a tad bit lower than it should be IMO.

In reality, it's more like ... no other DPS is as susceptible to boss invulnerability via phase shifts, and enemies dying too quickly, as SMN is. Those things happen more than any other job losing DPS to a mechanic.

[Brianmj]

Speaking of another useless skill, Tri-disaster is also insignificant in anything and everything, except PvP, and the MP cost is dumb.

Because everything is too easy now. Once the level cap is raised, and we're fighting things way above our level, Tri-disaster will find use again. Really, it's a very important kiting tool for us.

[Odowla]

SMN's DPS fluctuates very little throughout the entire fight, what word are you going to use to describe that?

No other DPS can sustain their numbers as well as SMN when it comes to dealing with mechanics or impromptu situations.
The jobs you listed are susceptible to a variety of things to make their dps take a sharp dive, such as: Dodging mechanics, running out of TP, travel time between enemies, invulnerable periods, denied access to positionals, activating the Limit Break and more.

so Does a MNKs. A BLM CAN be at 550 with a LOT of procs, or 480 with regular procs. Does the Proc rate matter? Not really, a BLM will STILL win over a SMN. Adds? Flare > DoTs, since every add that matters in FCoB dies in seconds, except for the t13 adds - but there's Swarms of them so Flare > Bane. BLM completly outclasses SMNs, utilitywise and damagewise. I swapped my main to MNK once I saw the gear for 2.4 It's a joke too. Spellspeed is essentially a 0 stat.

[Dextro]

The real problem is essentially: future-proof job balacing is very....very difficult.

In SCOB, BLM had a (~10%) raw damage increase in order to "be a viable option".
The reason: the way the content was designed (movement-heavy) made it hard for BLMs to put up competitive numbers.

In FCOB, SMNs are requesting a (~?%) raw damage increase in order to "be a viable option".
The reason: the way the content was designed (low movement, high uptime dps check) makes it hard for SMNs to put up competitive numbers.

I don't think SE will buff SMN in raw damage, because that would essentially be undoing the raw damage advantage that they believe BLM needs to stay competitive in certain types of content.
The problem being, that said type of content isn't what we currently have...
What we currently have is content that BLM would arguably excel at even if it didn't receive it's 2.2 buffs.

[Truedragon]

so Does a MNKs. A BLM CAN be at 550 with a LOT of procs, or 480 with regular procs. Does the Proc rate matter? Not really, a BLM will STILL win over a SMN. Adds? Flare > DoTs, since every add that matters in FCoB dies in seconds, except for the t13 adds - but there's Swarms of them so Flare > Bane. BLM completly outclasses SMNs, utilitywise and damagewise. I swapped my main to MNK once I saw the gear for 2.4 It's a joke too. Spellspeed is essentially a 0 stat.

Skillspeed is awesome for BLM. The gear you are talking about is geared for BLM. So you saying it is worthless, is completely missing the point. In case you havent noticed, the gear you seek out, is wearable by both BLM and SMN.

There are a multitude of ways to get your gear. If that stuff is not optimized for you, then go get crafted gear. The game has crafted gear for a reason you know. You can meld as much crit and det as you want on it. Y'know when gear is wearable by 2 jobs, then stuff like this happens. If they make the gear in between BLM and SMN, then they both suffer.

The real problem is essentially: future-proof job balacing is very....very difficult.

In SCOB, BLM had a (~10%) raw damage increase in order to "be a viable option".
The reason: the way the content was designed (movement-heavy) made it hard for BLMs to put up competitive numbers.

In FCOB, SMNs are requesting a (~?%) raw damage increase in order to "be a viable option".
The reason: the way the content was designed (low movement, high uptime dps check) makes it hard for SMNs to put up competitive numbers.

I don't think SE will buff SMN in raw damage, because that would essentially be undoing the raw damage advantage that they believe BLM needs to stay competitive in certain types of content.
The problem being, that said type of content isn't what we currently have...
What we currently have is content that BLM would arguably excel at even if it didn't receive it's 2.2 buffs.

^This. People talk shit about how bad their job is compared to MNK. But did you know how hard it was for MNK when the first coil was the highest dungeons. MNKs were wearing leatherarmor, 2 melees were considered a bane, had constant positional failures due to high movements, was constantly targetted with close range unavoidable aoe's and to make matters worse, mnks best gear all dropped from T4 or T5.

People talk about how dragon kick is a must-have and how mnk cannot be missed end game, but have these same people realized that dragon kicks magic reduction was essentially useless for like 15 months untill the current end game dungeons. What SE has done is simply made a use for stuff that was already promised to MNKs since day one of ff14 ARR 2.0.

One ilm punch? still useless, outside PvP. Haymaker still never procs unless solo content. And boohoo SE made dragon kick magic reduction finally usefull, lets all call unfair. Which ability in your job has been useless since day one for a period of 15 months?

What has happened was that many other jobs were severely disadvantaged since day one. And they were melees. And SE merely balanced the content out. Today, MNK is no longer looked at as weak and most AOEs target every job in the same way. Not just melees anymore. So range dps suddenly have to adapt. And thats where all the whining comes from. First, it was BLMs complaining they had to move too much during second coil. And now it is SMN. Correct me if Im wrong, but the SMN job got several DPS boosts already from earlier patches. And you still want more. I guess you just want the highest DPS while having the range and survivability of a BRD and the ease to play of a DRG.

We cant all be dragoons, yea.