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

[Dextro]

I hardly see SMNs asking for direct potency increases. Most are asking for very specific balance changes, like MP adjustment for example, which in itself increases the DPS a Summoner is capable of gaining over a fight without breaking the game

It's a lot more complicated than that, because most suggested buffs to SMN (Aetherflow, MP Costs, Potency increase, cross-class Thunder, Energy Drain buff etc.) would all affect SCH too.

SCH's DPS is already very potent within endgame, all the while handling their healing duties and being able to take care of additional mechanics such as T12 Bluefire.
Buffing any of the above-mentioned things would be tipping the scales of healer balance further and further in SCH's favour.
This isn't an issue now since healer choice isn't as competitive as DPS (2 healer roles, 2 healer raid slots), but consider when Astrologian is released, it'll be more competing for WHMs spot... not SCH's.

They have to be really careful with how they handle changes so that they only buff SMN alone, and this pretty much limits the possible choices to things such as pet potency/attack speed or Enkindle/Fester changes.

[Akiza]

It's a lot more complicated than that, because most suggested buffs to SMN (Aetherflow, MP Costs, Potency increase, cross-class Thunder, Energy Drain buff etc.) would all affect SCH too.

SCH's DPS is already very potent within endgame, all the while handling their healing duties and being able to take care of additional mechanics such as T12 Bluefire.
Buffing any of the above-mentioned things would be tipping the scales of healer balance further and further in SCH's favour.
This isn't an issue now since healer choice isn't as competitive as DPS (2 healer roles, 2 healer raid slots), but consider when Astrologian is released, it'll be more competing for WHMs spot... not SCH's. They have to be really careful with how they handle changes so that they only buff SMN alone, and this pretty much limits the possible choices to things such as pet potency/attack speed or Enkindle/Fester changes.

That is true the only thing SE can change without buffing the Summoner is pet potency/attack speed or Enkindle/Fester. But none of these options are desirable because Summoner's will out class every other dps.

[ChazNatlo]

That is true the only thing SE can change without buffing the Summoner is pet potency/attack speed or Enkindle/Fester. But none of these options are desirable because Summoner's will out class every other dps.

So this is a question actually for me to gain knowledge, I'm not being clever or trying to suggest something I "know" will fix everything. I don't know and I'm pretty sure it probably won't. It also isn't being posed directly to Akiza, her comment is just a good segue.

Would increasing the Cooldown on fester enough that you can't get three Festers in an aetherflow, meaning ideally you'd use that third stack for Energy drain, and Decreasing the cooldown on Enkindle a whole bunch to make up for the loss in DPS be a bad thing? Beyond some people's dislike of issuing the Pet Commands. I suppose also that I like a longish cooldown on Enkindle because it makes it special. ((though five minutes IS too long.))

[Dyvid]

So this is a question actually for me to gain knowledge, I'm not being clever or trying to suggest something I "know" will fix everything. I don't know and I'm pretty sure it probably won't. It also isn't being posed directly to Akiza, her comment is just a good segue.

Would increasing the Cooldown on fester enough that you can't get three Festers in an aetherflow, meaning ideally you'd use that third stack for Energy drain, and Decreasing the cooldown on Enkindle a whole bunch to make up for the loss in DPS be a bad thing? Beyond some people's dislike of issuing the Pet Commands. I suppose also that I like a longish cooldown on Enkindle because it makes it special. ((though five minutes IS too long.))

Hmm. Well if you increase the Fester to 30s cooldowns I would say you would need to drop enkindle down to 120s or even 60s. Yea signature moves are special but the damage output doesn't justify a 5 min wait, more so if not paired with rouse and spur.

[Havenchild]

It's a lot more complicated than that, because most suggested buffs to SMN (Aetherflow, MP Costs, Potency increase, cross-class Thunder, Energy Drain buff etc.) would all affect SCH too. SCH's DPS is already very potent within endgame, all the while handling their healing duties and being able to take care of additional mechanics such as T12 Bluefire.
Buffing any of the above-mentioned things would be tipping the scales of healer balance further and further in SCH's favour.
This isn't an issue now since healer choice isn't as competitive as DPS (2 healer roles, 2 healer raid slots), but consider when Astrologian is released, it'll be more competing for WHMs spot... not SCH's.

They have to be really careful with how they handle changes so that they only buff SMN alone, and this pretty much limits the possible choices to things such as pet potency/attack speed or Enkindle/Fester changes.

I 100% agree that they should completely avoid any changes that would also affect SCH.

Simply changing Fester to have a MP regeneration effect, or having Enkindle fully restore your MP each use, granted with the same 5m GCD (Preferably 4m) would align very well with a SMNs use of an optimal rotation since they usually bottom out on mana in the 3.5m-> 5m range.

I also don't support direct potency increases because I understand it becomes harder to forseeably balance those in the long run vs BLM. Most people fail to understand that a direct buff in single target via potency increase essentially buffs SMN AoE DPS via Bane and can very quickly overtune the DPS spread vs BLM, and like you said tied to SCH via Bio, Bio2 and Miasma 2. Buffs to Fester and Enkindle Potency alone, wouldn't fix any core issue on the class. At current, there is a clever Balance on DPS versus a BLM for SMN with BLM easing out easily due to the potency adjustments from SCOB. SMNS CAN catch up with easily QoL changes that allow us to utilize an optimal DPS rotation the entire fight or at least majority of it.

I do however favor a DPS buff via MP regeneration tools (Not Energy Drain -> which is tied to SCH) / Pet Balance (Food Correction / Moving Contagion off Garuda and unto Summoner JOB skills) / ACC Balance / Spellspeed Balance (Being a useful stat / via DoT tick occurence) / Better Gear optimization

[Dyvid]

It's a lot more complicated than that, because most suggested buffs to SMN (Aetherflow, MP Costs, Potency increase, cross-class Thunder, Energy Drain buff etc.) would all affect SCH too.

SCH's DPS is already very potent within endgame, all the while handling their healing duties and being able to take care of additional mechanics such as T12 Bluefire.
Buffing any of the above-mentioned things would be tipping the scales of healer balance further and further in SCH's favour.
This isn't an issue now since healer choice isn't as competitive as DPS (2 healer roles, 2 healer raid slots), but consider when Astrologian is released, it'll be more competing for WHMs spot... not SCH's.

They have to be really careful with how they handle changes so that they only buff SMN alone, and this pretty much limits the possible choices to things such as pet potency/attack speed or Enkindle/Fester changes.

This is true to a point. They could add / change SMN traits and abilities without messing with SCH. If the issue is mana then don't really need a potency change on abilities. For example addiing to Spur : pet damage restores player mp. Another would be removing enkindle, add a fifth pet action for inferno, aerial blash, earthen fury, then make the fifth SMN ability something like Aether Siphon that drains pet hp to restore mp.