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

[Sen_Terrechant]

Alright Xisin here is the issue.

Most of our 'utility' can be used by other classes, all of it infact. Traited E4E and Virus can be used by Scholar, and the normal versions can be used by WHM and BLM. We get a minute off, but if your using it correctly your placing it about 15 seconds before big hits, so you dont need it to be cycled constantly. Super Virus is the same thing, used before big hits. Honestly the Scholar alone can cover 90% of Virus uses in FCoB.

Im not going to mention battle rez because with our manapool it fucks us over so much. I honestly want them to take it away and give us something else... but thats a story for another time.

So we get this small amount of utility that can be covered by other classes, nothing unique to the Summoner. Then you realize that our DPS is barely above a Bards? Furthermore we have some ability to move, and i wont try and pretend that we need to flat foot like a BLM but saying SMN can just move around willy nilly isnt correct. It requires us to know the fight, know when to move, and to fuck with our unstable mana pool to do so. Not to mention if the BLM gets a proc they can easily move just as well as a SMN, and i would KILL for Aetherial Minipulation.

So you throw all that togather with the fact that BLM has just as much utility (more if you count selfish utility), NO RESOURCE to micromanage, and they blow us out of the water on DPS.

How is that fair?

EDIT: Oh and last Coil the ideal setup was double caster with constant Foes played. So there is no reason to say that SMN being good will push out BLM. Yes there is fotm that goes on, but SMN is super weak right now compared to every DPS class. To deny that because your afraid you wont get to play BLM as much is silly. Go play a SMN in FCoB for a couple weeks, then come back.

EDIT2: OH I FORGOT TO MENTION, a chunk of our DPS is from being in melee range and hitting the mob with our books. BLM has no such requirement. If you try and play a totally ranged SMN our damage falls even more behind. Book whacks can add a good 20 DPS in certain situations, so we have to deal with a lot of the issues melee have and we do 100 less DPS!

[Xisin]

look folks all I'm saying is simple, smn does have better utility than blm, I covered this earlier, at best its even, and otherwise smn wins out. Stop ignoring your convinent pet that LOVES to absorb effects like twins fireball and darnus's thermionic beam. Arguing about scob, and bcob is fair game in this case as we're discussing what 3.0 is bringing. FCOB alone is moot as it's over and the changes coming up don't really matter for todays raid. (it still matters ofc in the sense of say endurance fights.)

simply adjusting mp costs, not screwing smn over in gear and replacing the stupid pet proc already risks giving smns more damage. your resurrect is useful get over it. What the devs seem to shoot for with the two casters is BLM = more damage. SMN = more flexibility and utility. Both seem to be on the right trail.

The whole idea of this is so that imbalance doesn't happen again. Not so that one is indefinitely better than the other. At the same time the two classes need to serve a somewhat different purpose, a different fit for a different group. For example if you run a double bard pt then drg is a solid candidate for the melee slot. I personally would like to see summoner get the enchanter/necromancer treatment but I'm afraid this game won't allow a job to be complex. Cause let's face it, this game is pretty playschool when compared to other games.

* to elaborate on enchanters, Enchanters are a dot based class with a near infinite mp pool, their big thing was they had a pet, dots, had the ability to share their mp resource with others, enhanced melee dps, and had the ability to charm mobs. They traded this off however with very mediocre dps. Now in order to receive this t treatment smns would require a pretty hefty dps nerf. So whjat you would do is dot up, buff melee, buff caster,s re-dot, check mp levels of everyone, re-dot, fester etc. control pet and it goes on and on but that's a simple example.

edit - last post from me for a bit, but I'd like to point out that in situations such as t10 when you get blue orbed, smns loses about 4 ruins (like 1kish damage) but if they've planned ahead of time they still have pet + dots going, this is another nifty form of utility that smns get that other dpsers dont.

[Sanguisio]

snip

Give up arguing with the likes of Vivi, Dwill etc. They will never see the whole picture.

Hence why I am done replying in this thread, would have more luck getting blood from a stone

[ViviAnimus]

Give up arguing with the likes of Vivi, Dwill etc. They will never see the whole picture.

Hence why I am done replying in this thread, would have more luck getting blood from a stone

What are you even talking about? I have admitted on certain points that Xisin is absolutely correct. Why can't you people ever comment on someone's argument instead of someone? The sign of a perverted mindset, I might add. I have given good arguments for a Summoner buff.
The argument that still stands is that Summoner is outshined in the damage department by quite a large margin. I don't believe it is 12% with procs, but I do believe it is around 10% with procs.


You How can you argue against a small damage buff when BLM has better ST, AoE and burst. How can you even claim that Summoner would be fine?
And always this utility crap. No one brings a Summoner because of their raise, or because of enhanced virus. No one gives a shit because almost no Summoner has to do it anyway.

I think it should give Xisin some room to think that even though Summoner has all this uptime, it still gets outdamaged. Your argument about uptime is useless as long as the damage is still lower on pretty much every single front or every single fight. The perfect example on endgame is that SMN during earth shaker and megaflare and all the other stuff that makes you move or unable to attack should give Summoner a distinct advantage. But tell me a Summoner that has ended T13 with 540 DPS, you'll find no Summoner that does that. So yeah, uptime, great argument.
Are you seriously suggesting that in T5 the utility is that you could soak damage with your pet? Thanks a lot for that utility, SE! Never mind that you get shat on in Shiva and shat on in T10 and shat on in other turns with your pet. Never mind that.

[Dwill]

Snip

Nothing personal but most of that post is total bs.We do not have better utility, you telling us to get over it doesn't give your argument any credit. You know full well that Scholar will take care of any utility (Supervirus/ In-combat raise) that Summoner brings. The fact that you brought up Eye for an Eye is pathetic at best. Black Mage can easily bring it as well via their cross-class skills (as well as normal virus) yet you conviniently forgot to mention that. You also have Apocastatis which has its uses.

Neither do we have better mobility. Moving for us means Ruin II casting which in return means we take an even bigger hit in our MP which means we go oom even faster. Heck, even if it wouldn't be an MP sink, it wouldn't be better because you know full well that Black Mages mobility isn't that bad considering you can prevent moving for a certain period of time via Manaward/Manawall or can use proc during movement.

The imbalance of SCoB wasn't that drastic (Your making it sound like it was the Sunwell era all over again which is laughable). Black Mages had cleared T9 well before they received their buffs and said buffs you received in single target is pretty close to the difference in single target that Black Mage and summoners have right now, nevermind the fact that Black Mages scale much better than Summoner as well so the discrepancy will just get bigger as the patch progresses.

Tell me, do you really believe that having access to an instant raise we rarely ever use and Supervirus should give the right for Black Mages to have :

Better survavibility
Much better AoE damage
Superior Single Target damage
Infinite Ressources
Decent utility (No matter how you want to deny you don't have any)

over Summoners ?

Honestly, you mentioned you don't want to see an imbalance but everything in your post shows a total disconnect to the Summoner class and that the real balance you really care about is for Black Mages to be the best caster in every scenario.