Summoner buff

[Sen_Terrechant]

The buff made managing my mana a good amount easier in FCoB.

I also gained maybe 5ish DPS from being able to Ruin II for OGCDs more. Overall a decent baindaid fix until the expansion.

[Judge_Xero]

T13 my MP barely moved off 3k until add Phase where I decided I may as well use Blizz II for the extra damage.

With the MP changes it feels like you almost have to TRY to burn your MP. So in a way I guess it lets you focus purely on optimizing your DPS without worrying about resources.

I guess it's an okay Band-Aid until 3.0 since at least you wont have to worry about Ballad at all. Which aside from the extra damage BLM does at least it wont effect the overall dynamics of the party.
i.e.
- Lowering Bard DPS due to Ballad on top of the loss of not using BLM
- Parties that may not even use Bard.

[MrCookTM]

That doesn't really answer anything....at all..

So it didn't help SMN because people still would take a BLM over a SMN.
That's not the point of this thread.

Put group composition aside, I want to know how much this actually affects smn

I think this answers it pretty well, since the raiding scenario was the only content where smn mp problems mattered. This wasn't smn's main problem though, so I'm with Vivi here. In Order to make ppl not chose blm over smn by default the job needs a serious dps boost, and the ruin/ruin II mp adjustment only gave like +5 dps, while the real difference is definitely closer to like 50 dps. ^^ This is more of a problem in current content than it was in the past for two major reasons imo:

a) spellspeed heavy gear. It's true that spellspeed makes smn run out of mp faster while blm doesn't have to care about it, but the real issue is that ss as a stat just does close to nothing for smn damage wise. smn's main damage source is dots, and these are not effected by spellspeed, they are however affected by det and crit.

b) fights in fcob are very dummy'ish. Ever since blm got a potency buff it steamrolled smn in ST sustained dmg if there was close to no movement (aka T8). Smn was superior in movement heavy fights, since both egi damage and dots aren't affected by movement, dots even ticking during jump phases. With fcob being the final coil of dummy parse, this makes blm the superior choice dmg wise by a pretty big margin.

tl;dr: mp is not the problem, bards would very well play ballad for a smn if they would do actual competitive damage. melee's get paeon all day and nobody cares, because the damage makes up for it. What smn needs is a dmg buff, not mp.

[Tex_Mex]

SMN is still not competitive with BLM in coil. that is the heart of the problem.

In order for them to fix this they would've needed to:

1) Adjust SMN MP resource management - This one is complete
2) Increase SMN single target damage to be roughly 2-3% higher than BLM ST damage
3) Adjust SMN Uility to give them something that is actually useful in FCoB

Only 1 of these issues has been addressed. All 3 need to be looked at if SMN will ever be on par with BLM.

[FranSeara]

SMN is still not competitive with BLM in coil. that is the heart of the problem.

In order for them to fix this they would've needed to:

1) Adjust SMN MP resource management - This one is complete
2) Increase SMN single target damage to be roughly 2-3% higher than BLM ST damage
3) Adjust SMN Uility to give them something that is actually useful in FCoB

Only 1 of these issues has been addressed. All 3 need to be looked at if SMN will ever be on par with BLM.

Or, give Smns their OWN gear mostly free of Spell Speed. this might help...

[Tex_Mex]

Or, give Smns their OWN gear mostly free of Spell Speed. this might help...

Sure, that would go along ways towards helping my second point.

[Wintersandman]

3) Adjust SMN Uility to give them something that is actually useful in FCoB

Swiftcast raise isn't utility?

[FranSeara]

Sure, that would go along ways towards helping my second point.

The other point number 3, is POINTLESS. Smn is one of few classes that can fight alone outside of raids (same gos for Dragoon) giving them worthless "Raid Utility" is really silly. Smn is a job built as self - sustaning, they can heal their summons and themselves, also raise the dead. What "Utility" would you add that wouldnt break Smn?

[ViviAnimus]

Swiftcast raise isn't utility?

It is at this point in time. Although again, SCH and WHM when mana effecient can take it upon them to raise. There is nothing unique about a Raise and it is very situational to use one on SMN. Basically, in every serious group, healers will actually heal and raise. If you have to raise as a SMN, it's probably at the point where they are OoM. Also, in case ballad will have to be played, it will be for either SMN or healers. In case of using Raise as a SMN, the chances of having to play ballad is still a lot higher when you have SMN raise than when you let healers raise.
The utility a SMN has is good, but it's not really useful. Also, nice strawman. Never did Tex Mex claim that Swiftcast raise isn't utility. It's just not really useful.
Personally? I would delete the useless Raise and give them something in return. Something unique to the class. Every class has like unique utility, except for SMN.

[Tex_Mex]

Swiftcast raise isn't utility?

It isn't when FCoB mechanics are considered. FCoB mechanics are designed to punish anyone in the party dying anyways. Being able to raise someone is only useful in non FCoB content. And it is VERY useful for that stuff, but that stuff doesn't really matter anyways because the difficulty is so easy that class balance is unimportant.