I want to stop playing Summoner.... But I cant

[Sleigh]

IMO
T10 - BLM
T11 - BLM
T12 - BLM
T13 - BLM

FTFY

It's getting worse as we gear up. Nothing's living long enough for SMN multi-DoTs to breathe long enough in high DPS groups, you'll be lucky if SMN even does 1/3 the damage of BLM on a Bennu before it's dead. Now it's just burn burn burn everything. Not only that but the current farm meta IMO is about pushing phases faster and faster, skipping mechanics, and SMN will never win there.

SMN's so good on paper but if you personally use SMN and use BLM in the same gear, same group, the difference just jumps at you. You'll notice halfway through the fight you're multiple % behind and possibly getting a mechanic you should have skipped, or scenarios where adds get burned down with BLM that suddenly with SMN it's surviving longer and the OT is eating more damage, taking away healer attention from DPS or healing the MT.

I do think, if there's a proper buff, SMN will win T11 and T13 (well, win in the sense that it will win on Bahamut, not necessarily the add phase, but that's irrelevant to any good group these days). Honestly don't think SMN will ever compete with BLM T10 and T12, the multi-DoTing gets less effective every week, and T10 phase pushes are very annoying as SMN since the DoTs stop ticking.

[Kinseykinz]

I'm still not quite seeing the issue.

1. SMN can 100% work in Final Coil. Just because you wish to push push push the phases, and/or just because BLM makes things 'easier' doesn't mean it makes SMN obsolete.
2. The 'content should be balanced around what the 'endgame crowd' decides is best party comp' and/or all endgame content should be equally easy regardless of party comp. arguements are also flawed.
Reasons/examples:
-At some points since launch, there have been times when the best/fastest way to do some of the endgame content was Solo Tank and/or Solo Heals. So should we balance content around it having 6 DPS because some teams opted to do it that way?
-At some points since launch, there have been times when specific DPS were asked to do specific roles that likely other DPS (or tanks) could have handled. Kite Methods etc.
-At some points since launch, 'leet' groups figured out ways to either totally ignore and/or skip phases all together (Turn 2 and Turn 6 probably being the most glaring examples...and these strats WERE used when the content was fresh).

My point, 'outside the box' playing in a fair but not as intended way shouldn't merit 'well guys, now we should re-balance the content because the top-tier learned how to push the phases' . The fact is, the top-tier players are ALWAYS looking for ways to do it faster,stronger,better. To the point where they push battle mechanics, gear, and each and every party role above and beyond what would normally be expected in normal (albiet well-played) gaming. So asking the devs to 're-balance because we're playing the content in a way slightly different than you designed it to be played' really isn't the best approach.

3. Most top-tier elite teams have no issues swapping roles/jobs as needed. Which is WHY the 'stack' methods and/or 'this role need not apply' strategy's happen in the first place. They happen because that dude that ideally mains SMN is also a force as a BLM...or that top-tier Bard, well he's a bad-ass NIN too. So these teams are very adept at swapping between roles as needed, when needed. And again, prefer to do things the fastest, smoothest way. What's funny though, is many of these 'established strategies' and party builds actually are part of what holds the rest of the playerbase back. First, the assumption becomes 'lol that role sucks in here' ...secondly, the 'ideal setups' are sometimes only actually ideal if you CAN push phases/skip mechanics etc...but if you can't, then sometimes those very roles that are supposedly King, become a hinderance. Lastly, it sometimes forces either people to enter on a role they have less skill and/or gear on (and therefore increase their fail odds) or, forces people to jump like little lemmings to the 'new hot sexy'...inviting a lot of unskilled players mixed in with the masses. You know why you get a lot of crap-tastic tanks/healers in daily roulettes....because the wait times are shorter and people who otherwise don't play those roles/gear those roles are running your roulettes on their 3rd+ favored job. Well the same thing happens when the elite decide there's only 'one way' to do things. People jump to roles in hopes of clearing the content....as the elite now decided it should be cleared.

4. The gear issue. Yeah this kinda does suck. But really, it sucks for any caster that'd prefer a less Spell-speed heavy set. All I can say is hopefully there will be better gear options available within the next 'hardcore' release. And while they might go and adjust it (they did this once before for blm/smn gears), considering how deep we already are in this patch, I don't see this being a likely scenario. The ONLY thing I can see happening is that maybe the final Tower gear will be more Crit....but that would still be problematic as it'll have ilvl issues.

5. This is simply not SMN's patch. It was a 'Melee' patch..very much so. And it doesn't take a lot to figure out why. They WANT many of you endgamers to try NIN and start gearing/using it. They want Melee to be popular...because up until this patch, ranged roles were not only more plentiful (3 ranged vs 2 melee), but much much more played. Now ironically, one reason for this was again, for most endgame content (from Primals-Coil...but hell, even ST is far easier as Ranged), it was simply seen as it was easier to stack Ranged because you could avoid a lot of mechanics and in so doing either keep up the exact same, or actually increase party DPS due to NOT needing to avoid AoE's/move to attack different mobs as often. So, now, they made content that encourages people to bring Melee and SMN got left out in the cold....because even if SMN did the exact same damage as BLM, the reality is, at the end of the day, BLM is less 'clunky' less 'glitchy' (OMG GARUDA NOOOOOO!!!!!), and a little more straight-forward to play.

6. Even if things are leaning heavily melee and then BLM right now....and even if that means SMN's get left out, with all the changes inc for 3.0, I still think it's more prudent to voice your concerns of course, but wait and see what happens once your level cap increases, and you get a new pet etc. My suspicion is BLM won't progress quite as much as SMN will. Sure blm will ALWAYS be the caster with 0 MP issues...but their growth (and the skills they will get) is very predictable and going to follow the same basic path it has been on since level 1. SMN on the other hand has much more potential...whether it be more utility, more raw power, more DoT/spread skills, more party assistance who knows, but it is far more likely that SMN will hit it's boon in 3.0 (or not that long after), and that right now, what you're really seeing is a combination of 'less than suitable content'+'job that with current gear has hit a plateau' ...but new levels,skills,pet(s) and content could once again re-write the entire endgame experience.

To add to this point: I don't know how far in the future SE has planned job/class growth, skills and content, but they know the desired path each and every job/role will take to get to it's 'max' destination. Right now, we're all not actually doing 'endgame' we're doing 'midgame' Our jobs are only partially complete...we ALL will get more skills. But that means that since we are only 'mid-level' while overall, most roles are fairly balanced and can complete all content...there are still times when this isn't the case. People keep saying 'you shouldn't balance to low-level' and/or 'you should balance to endgame' well...we ARE actually 'low-level' and we aren't exactly endgame....we're level 50....with a level increase only months away.

7. You are all not special snowflakes. Every role has this issue. I bet most of these Final Coil teams don't bring 2 Scholars...or 2 White Mages...bet you only bring 1 of each. Or stack 3 Monks...or 2 Warrior tanks. It's just in the past 'endgame' content, you COULD feasibly bring 2 SMN's and have quite the fireshow....or bring 1blm/1smn for a similar effect. And many SMN's got use to the 2 mages idea. The problem is 2 Mages+1 bard came at the expense (as stated earlier) of Melee...or in reality, DRG. Now funny enough, DRG could ALWAYS do all the previous turns and EX primals too. It just simply was left behind because 2 casters typically were better, bards and their song potential trump leaving them behind, and Monk didn't have the animation lock/getting eaten issues (Mag rest/animation locks)+could typically pump out a wee bit more DPS than even a very skilled DRG. So DRG's got the shaft (don't worry though we ALLL got DRG drops...omg the drg drops). So SE kept tweaking DRG. But really, while the tweaks helped...what helped DRG even more was a Coil designed around Melee.

But just know, that with 3.0 and the implementation of yet another Ranged DD...the 1 caster/1 Ranged DD thing could become more the norm...heck, there might be content where 'sorry no mages' And people will complain when this happens...but it'll be okay, because either things WILL get fixed (because there was an actual disparity between roles causing the shunning) or the next content patch will come out and it'll be ALL about the Mages...this is what happens. It's always what happens. The only thing that changes is in 3.0, this will now happen to healers, and tanks as well. (if you can only take 2, and there's 3 of each, someone's sitting on the sidelines).

[ViviAnimus]

How many fallacies must I read and the same one over and over again. It doesn't mean that if a class can perform that it's fair. The class is absolute in the sense that there is no use for it in endgame contect at the moment. How is that so hard to get in people's thick heads? The swapping of classes is all fun and cool but no one is going to swap to SMN because it is not as good ANYWHERE. In your argument regarding gear you make another stupid logical fallacy. It's not a question of preferance, it's a question of pragmatism. Spell speed = 0.089 INT while it's 0.26 for Black Mage. Summoners are forced to at least wear 4 pieces with spell speed that is outscaled by BLM. BLM can by the way make a set that isn't that spell speed heavy and choose a CRIT build. Basically, what you sense is kind of silly.
Summoners should do more ST damage and BLM should do more AoE damage. At the moment BLM does both making Summoner the lest viable caster damage wise.

[ViviAnimus]

In number 7 you again make a logical fallacy. Of course people won't bring two White Mages or two Scholars. They both have their merits and usefulness and it's actually quite imperative to have one of each. They balance each other out quite nicely. Summoner isn't used not because again, it's just not a viable damage dealer and its utility is useless in FCoB. It's in that position now. There is no use for a Summoner, there are usually 0 Summoners in an end game raid. It doesn't matter how many Monks and BLM you can stack in your team or that Dragoon in the past was the victim of caster friendly parties. What matters is now and the fact that Summoner has glaring issues which you are oblivious to.

[Sunako]

its utility is useless in FCoB

I disagree SMN have some utility in final coil.

T10: you can put dots on 4 target at same time. BLM can use flare on 2 targets. If you are selected by stun your pet is still doing damage and dots ticking. You can apply dots and pet attack during limit break so you do not lose that much damage as blm doing limit.

T11: There SMN do not Have so much utility over blm. You can multi dot targets if physical dps lack damage during you dps the cube. If you are selected by tethers you need move and that may save some dps over BLM. During add phase you need move if you need dodge things that randomly appear.

T12: There is lot situations once you can bane bennus and heavily increase your dps. There is 3x downtime point where your resources get generated and where you can precast shadow flare and black mage will lose their stacks(if they are lucky they can transpose full mana if alerady oom tho). Caster limit break same as turn 10 in bennu phase.

T13: During earth shaker SMN do not lose that much dps than BLM if paladin do not cover you but that is usually used for monk. During megaflare you may lose sec or two if you do not have procs. During add phase SMN can use dots both add and the boss at same time.

[ViviAnimus]

T10 dots is indeed pretty sweet however mana draining, if you are stuned you can always use swifstcast as a BLM, it's not that big of a deal. You can also use manaward and apostowhever in that fight as a blm
T11 moving around as a BLM is no big issue. Moving during tethers is more beneficial do SMN. But the burst on a BLM (cube) is a lot higher than Summoner burst + manaward and apostowhever
T12 Flaring > everything. The baning of benus is laughable because the add dies to fast. You might even be better off just using fester at the pace it dies. Black mages should never lose their stacks
T13 BLM does not lose that much DPS even when moving + BLM has manawall which is huge especially on the last phase. The add phase a BLM is super powerful and the AoE is a lot better than that of a Summoner. The dots on the adds is again laughable since it dies to fast.

[Judge_Xero]

Honestly don't think SMN will ever compete with BLM T10 and T12, the multi-DoTing gets less effective every week, and T10 phase pushes are very annoying as SMN since the DoTs stop ticking.

I still think SMN has the edge over BLM for T12 Bennu Phase. Assuming you're pushing 4 Bennus

BLM - Flare - Astral 3 ~ 364 Potency - 468 Potency
SMN - B2MB @ 9 Seconds 330 Potency + M2 Potency 50 - Total 380 Potency - With the Potential of 730 DPS running for 18s


I know that BLM can Flare multiple times - But SMN is also doing Single Target Damage + their pet is doing damage. If you Dot up a Big Bennu each new spawn, it times up very well to Bane to the small bennus.

So IMO - this is why SMN has the upper hand in T12 - because they can spread almost equal damage, plus with their single target damage they can burn down the individual Bennus faster to push through the Big Bennu spawns faster, which in turn keeps their Dots reapplied to all the little bennus.

Even if things are dying faster
380 Potency/9s = 42 Potency/s
730 Potency/18s = 40.5 Potency/s

On a Damage Per Second scale it doesn't change a whole lot, unless you are tossing out Dots that will have little time to do anything.
I feel 9 seconds of Dots spread by Bane is very reasonable for the Bennu phase.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

T10 Phase pushes are annoying, but you know they are there. I cringe when I see a SMN throw all their Dots on Imdogud just before an add phase. We have Ruin for a reason and just Bio + Ruin is stronger than all the Dots + Ruin for a whole 15 seconds. (including cast times to apply them)


As long as you are adjusting your rotation for things dying faster, then the DPS should equalize, since:
Bio + Ruin is strongest for up to 15s
Bio + Miasma + Ruin is strongest for 21s
Bio + Miasma+ Bio 2 + Ruin is strongest past that, or if you need to Fester.

So with things dying faster - you should really be able to do even more damage overall.

[ShinryuReishiki]

BLM - Flare - Astral 3 ~ 364 Potency

Flare in AF3 (+80%) is 468 potency. In 9s, without Convert, Mega Ether, or even Swiftcast a BLM could do 828 potency per target. It's not like Flare is a BLM's only spell.

[point09micron]

BLM - Flare - Astral 3 ~ 364 Potency
SMN - B2MB @ 9 Seconds 330 Potency + M2 Potency 50 Potency - Total 380 Potency (@ 18s it's potentially 660 + 70 - 730 Potency - So 2 Flares @ AS3)

I don't want to get in the middle of the "SMN sucks now bawww" and "no you suck" argument flying back and forth here, but I did want to jump in for this point.

Astral Fire III boosts damage by 80%, boosting the 260 potency of Flare to 468 on a single target. 364 potency would be Flare under Astral Fire I (40% boost), and it would be 416 under Astral Fire II (60% boost).

Edit: Ha, I got beat to the punch by Shinryu, probably while I was mathing the AFI and AFII numbers.

Flare in AF3 (+80%) is 468 potency. In 9s, without Convert, Mega Ether, or even Swiftcast a BLM could do 828 potency per target. It's not like Flare is a BLM's only spell.

And even if Flare was BLM's only spell, getting 3 of them off in 9 seconds is child's play with the use of Convert, some type of Ether, and Swiftcast. That's 1404 potency per target in 9 seconds without even being tricky with the timing.

[Judge_Xero]

And even if Flare was BLM's only spell, getting 3 of them off in 9 seconds is child's play with the use of Convert, some type of Ether, and Swiftcast. That's 1404 potency per target in 9 seconds without even being tricky with the timing.

Thanks, I updated my post.

1404 Potency per mob is some great front loaded damage. I'm curious what type of numbers/rotation a BLM would perform after that initial burst, and how long the recovery would be Transposing into Umbral I.