Can someone give me an in-depth explanation why Summoner is arguably the worst DPS?

[Akiza]

The Black Mage destroys the Summoner in every area single target, aoe, survivability and utility. Black Mage's also have a soft DPS cap so they can easily exceed DPS checks with the minimum amount of gear while the Summoner can't they have to over gear endgame raids to viable. Despite what many people think Black Mage is sustained damage all of their spells hit instantly and they are able to maintain their damage around their maximum. Summoner's are spike damage there DPS starts high then after 4min their DPS rapidly declines because they instantly lose 27% of their dps for 60s since they have no Aetherflow stacks, Shadow Flare is a waste of mp to cast and enkindle is on an ungodly long 300s cool down for a move that contributes to 2% of our total DPS. Even with all of our DoTs ticking which is 35% of our Dps with the pet doing around 28% and ruin spam 10% anyone can plainly see during the phase in which Summoner's are out of Aetherflow stacks we lose 27 - 30% of our DPS for a minute which is 8100 damage if they do around 450 DPS and 40,500 damage over the course of a 10 min fight. That is if a Summoner plays perfectly if the Summoner is good or average they can easily lose 60,000 damage over a 10 min fight which lose of 100 DPS that is the issue with Summoner players are punished for playing perfectly and brutally punished for being good or average.

[Judge_Xero]

Summoner's are spike damage there DPS starts high then after 4min their DPS rapidly declines because they instantly lose 27% of their dps for 60s since they have no Aetherflow stacks, Shadow Flare is a waste of mp to cast and enkindle is on an ungodly long 300s cool down for a move that contributes to 2% of our total DPS. Even with all of our DoTs ticking which is 35% of our Dps with the pet doing around 28% and ruin spam 10% anyone can plainly see during the phase in which Summoner's are out of Aetherflow stacks we lose 27 - 30% of our DPS for a minute which is 8100 damage if they do around 450 DPS and 40,500 damage over the course of a 10 min fight. That is if a Summoner plays perfectly if the Summoner is good or average they can easily lose 60,000 damage over a 10 min fight which lose of 100 DPS that is the issue with Summoner players are punished for playing perfectly and brutally punished for being good or average.

Please tell me how you make your 3 Festers do 8100 Damage. The best I could do with lucky crits is probably closer to 4500 Damage (75 DPS), but on average it's more like 3200 Damage (53 DPS)

nvm

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To OP, I agree with others that it sounds like you don't want to play SMN.

As to why SMN is the worst DPS, is because it's a DoT class. It is punished for things dying quick, because you don't get the full potency of a spell if your dots don't run their full duration. Not only are the dots expensive, but they are also incredibly weak if they don't run their full duration.
Because of this you have to constantly plan ahead limit your resources to keep MP and maintain as much damage as you can.

I.E. Main boss has all 3 dots, Shadow Flare and you just refreshed Contagion. 1 single mobs spawns with ~20,000 HP. (it has to be tanked on the opposite side of the arena, because if it gets too close to the boss the arena explodes) Between you and your other DPS party members you have 1800 DPS, so this mob is going to die in ~11 seconds.
Do you
A: put all three dots on this mob, Fester and Swift Cast Shadow Flare
B: toss on Bio and just Ruin Spam
C: Energy Drain X 3
D: Ignore the add and just continue to attack the main boss.

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Then you can ask yourself...how could I know how much HP this mobs has? and how the hell do I know on the fly what the Raid DPS is between the members attacking this mob.

Rhetorical Question of course, since you can't really know, you can only guess. But unfortunately for SMN, it could be the difference of:
(in addition to what your dots are doing to the main boss)

A: 1500 Damage for 650 MP
B: 1550 Damage for 422 MP (plus an unused Aetherflow Stack - 1000 Damage to use on the main boss wahoo!!)
C: 1575 Damage for 0 MP and 1575 lost Damage because you just wasted your Aetherflow ><
D: A loss of 560-700 Damage (depending on the server tick) because you could at least have tossed a Bio on the add, and then Ruin'd the main boss.

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On the opposite end of the spectrum though, SE can't make Summoner's potency too high, because their are people who can think on the fly like that, and create a bit of a Monster in the DPS world. You do need a risk/reward balance as well seeing as SMN has some of the highest risk in casting any of it's spells.
SMN seems to be the worst DPS because it's reward is less than it's risk. Not saying that the class isn't amazingly fun or that is has much less damage than other classes, but for the average player you're better off playing a class where the reward at least equals the risk, that way if you can't push it to it's potential, you can at least win all the things.

[Huntington]

I said this in another SMN thread:
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when SMN starts falling to the wayside again in a Final Fantasy game, seems to happen over natural progression regardless. It should be getting enhanced in the future though with the issues people are all seeing in FCoB, which is end-game raid content and not necessarily quantitative of the Job's issues in other content, but with so many being brought up to speed with the other Jobs, I guess it's just SMN's time as well.

I stopped maining SMN awhile ao when I found more fun in WAR and MNK, since then I've been keeping it up to speed, but I just don't see it as the best case of how I'd like it to be played, especially if it doesn't really bring much to the table besides an occasional combat raise. If it ends up being a third rate class that no one wants in their groups like in XI, then SMN just can't be used "right" in a MMORPG'er I guess."

Maybe it's just that the fights in FCoB aren't to the favor of SMN's, maybe more people are noticing issues with it because a lot of other jobs have been enhanced in some way or another, and now the circle has come full tilt and it's SMN's turn, I don't know for sure.

I do seriously find it ironic that when I did play XI, being a SMN and being able to summon all of the best Avatars from the Final Fantasy universe was my biggest attractor for going through the hellish time of playing it on a 360 and doing all the updates and getting acclimated to the game itself. But once it was at 99 and ready to be played, I noticed nobody wanted SMNs in their groups. All your damage came from your pet, and you would be brought along as an extra WHM if it was needed basically in the content. So SMN's weren't wanted nearly as much as say Rune Fencer's, Ninjas sometimes, or Geomancers and Rangers. If you couldn't come along as a SMN, you weren't wanted at all on that class.

Is there some issue that keeps happening with SMN's in SE games? They seem to keep lagging behind in their games and most see them as crappy mages when we could be using a BLM or something else most of the time.

[Nux]

snip

Not in FFT at least with all those friendly fire, although i would choose hero job over them anytime.
Give me my Temple Knight now SE !!!

SMN is a DEAD class anyway, OP should change it class
Con :
Abysmal visual effect with exception for Tri-Dis and LB's,
God want to torture you by looking at tiny number on enemy debuff,
Your party already have SCH/WHM/BLM/MNK/NIN/DRG/BRD/WAR/PLD/GSM/BSM/LTW/CRP/ARM/WVR/ALC/BTN/MNR/FSH
Very Anti-fun to play
Artificially difficult to play correctly because god want to punish you anyway
Garlond Ironworks hates SMN and you in particular (bahamut also want you dead)
and wait there's more !! just ask anyone in here ....
Pro:
You can start smoke weed when your MP ran out you cant do s#!t anyway just sit back and relax
Conclusion:
SMN is a class for tryhard and roleplayers

Why did i insulting my own main again ?, maybe it came from the number of people telling me to change my main

[Sanguisio]

snip

lol I giggled^^

However I've noticed why do people think the game only revolves around FCOB at the moment. There are countless players who cant do FCOB etc for whatever reasons. SMN isnt bad in those duties ^^
Primals SMN good especially when you have multiple targets spaced out, e.g ramuh a SMN shits on a BLM here ^^, Levi like wise, ifrit likewise, lets throw garuda in their as well, because garuda fighting garuda is basically a chicken fight.

Comedy aside, yes for endgame content it isnt the best atm, but otherwise it isnt the crappy class people seem to be making it out to be.

[Akiza]

I said this in another SMN thread:
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when SMN starts falling to the wayside again in a Final Fantasy game, seems to happen over natural progression regardless. It should be getting enhanced in the future though with the issues people are all seeing in FCoB, which is end-game raid content and not necessarily quantitative of the Job's issues in other content, but with so many being brought up to speed with the other Jobs, I guess it's just SMN's time as well.

I stopped maining SMN awhile ao when I found more fun in WAR and MNK, since then I've been keeping it up to speed, but I just don't see it as the best case of how I'd like it to be played, especially if it doesn't really bring much to the table besides an occasional combat raise. If it ends up being a third rate class that no one wants in their groups like in XI, then SMN just can't be used "right" in a MMORPG'er I guess."

Maybe it's just that the fights in FCoB aren't to the favor of SMN's, maybe more people are noticing issues with it because a lot of other jobs have been enhanced in some way or another, and now the circle has come full tilt and it's SMN's turn, I don't know for sure.

I do seriously find it ironic that when I did play XI, being a SMN and being able to summon all of the best Avatars from the Final Fantasy universe was my biggest attractor for going through the hellish time of playing it on a 360 and doing all the updates and getting acclimated to the game itself. But once it was at 99 and ready to be played, I noticed nobody wanted SMNs in their groups. All your damage came from your pet, and you would be brought along as an extra WHM if it was needed basically in the content. So SMN's weren't wanted nearly as much as say Rune Fencer's, Ninjas sometimes, or Geomancers and Rangers. If you couldn't come along as a SMN, you weren't wanted at all on that class.

Is there some issue that keeps happening with SMN's in SE games? They seem to keep lagging behind in their games and most see them as crappy mages when we could be using a BLM or something else most of the time.

Summoner is designed as a crappy White Mage in Final Fantasy XI with long cool downs on pet abilities that did the majority of damage. Final Fantasy XIV Summoners are designed as a crappy Black Mage with a absurdly long cool down on their spike damage move Enkindle and their Fester spike behind the Aetherflow wall.
I don't agree that SE can't designed Summoners for MMORPG's. In a mmo developers have to design jobs based on what they are at their core a Black Mage uses elemental direct damage spells which specialize in sustained DPS with one bursts ability. The Summoner uses summoning magic is based around summons which specialize in spike damage, AoE and utility. If SE wants to make a Summoner correctly in MMORPG's they have to build them around the summons make them specialize in spike damage, AoE spike damage and utility and give them a sub job.

[Tex_Mex]

The reason that it matters more for FCoB is because THAT is where class balance is the most important. Sure, when everyone overgears content like T1-9, ST, dungeons, etc., then it makes no difference. But that is no excuse for overlooking end game balance.

The two most important places for class balance are pvp and end game raiding. This has been true for every paid subscription MMO in existence for a long time. You can get away with balancing around casual players in F2P games, but it is still not smart to do so.

In this case, SMN fell behind because of 2 main reasons. 1) FCoB mechanics are not friendly to the places that SMN is already hurting. (utility and resource management) and 2) Gear progression and stat weights hurt the SMN more than any other class because of Spell Speed and its uselessness to a SMN.

[Staris]

Battle res and a second improved virus are incredible advantages... If you wipe just because one person dies your terrible. Even world first kills have people or multiple people being battle ressed.
You can use 95% of your gear for Blackmage if the dps check for anything was ever tight enough (and its not, not even close)...

Summoner is fine until expansion.

[Tex_Mex]

Battle res and a second improved virus are incredible advantages...

Summoner is fine until expansion.

I have to respectfully disagree with your comments. A second virus is definitely useful, but the battle res comes with a heavy, HEAVY price. 1st) issue with battle res in final coil is that in most of the coils, a death by a team member puts a damage stack onto the boss that makes things more difficult for the party thereafter. 2nd) The immense mana cost for res really hurts the SMN's ability maintain high dps throughout the entire encounter. SMN is already starved for mana, and this makes using a SMN res a very difficult option.

As far as gear goes, not every SMN has both SMN and BLM leveled to 50, so that doesn't help the majority of people. There have been some very simple, and very intelligent changes suggested in this thread to try and make SMN a more worthwhile choice in final coil. I believe that SE will consider them closely.

[Sleigh]

Battle res and a second improved virus are incredible advantages... If you wipe just because one person dies your terrible. Even world first kills have people or multiple people being battle ressed.
You can use 95% of your gear for Blackmage if the dps check for anything was ever tight enough (and its not, not even close)...

Summoner is fine until expansion.

About Virus, two Super-Viruses are effectively the same as a Super-Virus and a Virus in most cases due to Antibody. Typically all Viruses on the boss will be Super-Virus from SCH while WHM/caster takes care of adds, and aside from T11 adds which don't hit hard anyway, none of the adds need Super-Virus. tl;dr - SCH viruses boss, WHM/caster alternate on adds

Similarly, Resurrection is usually not even used by SMN if a raise is needed. SCH > WHM > SMN for order, and if you get down to SMN you've entered wipe territory in most cases anyway.