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

[Akiza]

Summoner is worthless in hardcore end game raiding. The reality is Summoner has equal to or lower DPS than the Bard but no utility to justify having all around poor DPS. DoT classes are meant to be crowd control but since cc's are spread across DPS they are no longer needed. Modern MMORPGS DoT classes are generally in the Healer role because they can multitask and provide party support. DCUO is the only MMO where DoT classes are designed as intended in the Controller Role. Also DoT DPS are easy to break. There are a few ways to fix the Summoner keep the job the same and design content around it which obviously SE doesn't want to do looking at FCOB and 2.5 dungeons. Buff the Summoner by 5-7% which will put them just below Monk. Rework the Summoner into a Pet Based Job.

[Romsca]

Divine, I could probably bet on SE just adjusting the amount of mana summoners get per point of piety to fix our mana issues. More mana reserve increases the mana regeneration in combat and increases the return on Aetherflow. I would go so far as to say that SE will adjust this so that between the incombat mana regen plus Aetherflow we will come out just below the theoretical sum of all dots, shadowflare and ruins cast in a minutes time so that we will need to use energy drain but not as often as we currently need to.

[VanilleFang]

snip.

This would be good for SMNs but it would make it so SCHs would have basically infinite MP. Besides, I like my slow. ]:

snip

I doubt it. Every point of Piety gives every class/job the same amount of MP (8 at level 50), they won't adjust it just for one job. Or at least I highly doubt they will.

[Romsca]

That may be, Vanille, but it would be the simplest fix to summoner without altering scholar by adjusting the mana cost of our skills. Unless the piety > mana conversion is done by the same coding across all classes, which would then require adding in new code. But, I would think the amount of time needed to change that coding would be far less than would be needed to balance out changes to the skill costs or creating new gear.

Can't adjust Aetherflow without affecting scholar. Can't adjust energy drain without affecting scholar. Can't add piety to gear without it giving black mage more mana to cast additional spells. Add in costs to balance test, I would go with SE just changing the piety conversion to save money and time.

[ShinryuReishiki]

I doubt it. Every point of Piety gives every class/job the same amount of MP (8 at level 50), they won't adjust it just for one job. Or at least I highly doubt they will.

Each class actually gets unique amounts of MP per Piety. SMN gets ~7.25, SCH ~7.5, WHM ~7.9, BLM ~8.25, and PLD ~3.9. These aren't exact numbers; I just tossed on some Piety pieces, found the difference in MP, then divided by the amount of Piety. A SCH with no Piety equipped actually has the same base amount as a BLM, but is a few hundred MP lower...

[scarebearz]

lets put this argument to bed. Black mage is king of the magic damage.

And Magic Damage is the King of what?

If SMN's actually want to show how weak they are, would be much better to list comparisions to the other DPS classes, rather than trying to make BLM out to be some super over-powered class lol.

With our "infinate resources" we still get thrashed by melee in end-game content :P


If they gave the SMN job-stone additional Piety increase (mp + mp regain), that would probably solve most of the issues with MP and bring their DPS back on par, without buffing SCH.

[Xisin]

The math on the % damage difference is a few pages back, you can look for it, not linking it lol. Granted blms still do more for sure but the point is, is that those calculations were off, not really intentionally though.

Gotta say though with all this blm is king of aoe fight stuff floating around, I think people need to look at how scary a well played nin or drg is in aoe. in shiva ex i finally saw four digit dps during adds (cumulative, not in the moment) but don't worry the nin was about 100 behind me at the time... shits ridiculous lol. Despite pet troubles a well played smn can potentially trump a blm in that fight, the parse numbers I've seen at least show that possibility anyway.

But on the summoner thing, I can't agree with the smns on it... Sorry I'm not against the buff, but what most suggest is simply too much.

[Starkbeaumont]

So the main goal is to fix SMN's MP issues, without effecting SCH and without having to much of an impact to the dmg they do. So one of the following things might be a good way to go:

- if Energy Drain's MP return would be tied to the dmg it does, SCH would still get a buff, and using energy drain means dps lose anyway
- lowering Ruin's mp cost (would still effect SCH, but I doubt in any meaningful way)
- changing Enhanced Pet Action to something that helps with keeping up MP, is out of question cause of SCH, maybe this trait can be changed depending on which job stone you use
- giving something to your pets (maybe Ifrit, hint: Radiant Shield is useless) that will make you recover MP, but this might mean shifting to Ifrit for most stuff and ignoring Garuda (for dungeons and AoE she'll still be fine)
- giving Fester a secondary effect, that if it crits, you'll cast for free for the next 12s(?)
- giving Spur the additional effect, that while it's on, your pet attacks recover the SMN's MP based on a percent of the dmg they do

[Shizuna]

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Is Shiva EX the only fight you can see where SMN supposedly does more than BLM? Cause that's not really worth mentioning to what most people are talking about, which is FCOB and end-game content. I have a few questions though: how much do you expect SMN's to do in that fight and what was your highest or highest you've seen in Shiva EX as BLM? I don't doubt that a good SMN can do more than an average BLM, but if it was in terms of equal gear and high skill level, I don't think that would be the case. I haven't really tried Shiva EX as SMN, but I know as a ilvl 121 BLM I do around 450-500 DPS with i110 weapon.

Also, I'm not sure which buffs people are suggesting that's too much, but all I can see is that BLM > SMN in ST damage, based on looking at parses/DPS leader boards that people have showed me and how much top-grade SMN's do and I guess how much I do as well. I'm really not much of a theory-crafter to say what is needed, aside from having more piety and getting more mp back.

[scarebearz]

based on looking at parses/DPS leader boards that people have showed me and how much top-grade SMN's do and I guess how much I do as well.

Is there actually a dedicated a SMN chart or are you just comparing what you think SMN's can do against those numbers Puro Striders list?