How Would You Do... Summoner?

[Okamimaru]

Maybe have egi appear from our books when we cast certain skills... give titans lb the heavy effect, and ifrits Aoe attack a burning dot.. as well as balancing garudas lb with ifrits...give us a reason to play with the other egi... some names of skills should be changed to reflect summoner and not some plague-mage...

[Silverquick]

Oh Almost forgot... as an addition to what I said above...

Because you end up with a good 3 hot bars worth of abilities by level 60... and all get used...

Shortening the Tri-Disaster CD to 30 seconds is probably a good idea to reduce the Icon spam on your Hot Bars.

Also things like that will make it easier on Console Players.

[Yorumi]

I like what lunar mentioned. I'd add though I suggested this in another thread, add egis for things like leviathan, ramuh, sephirot, shiva etc. When you use dreadwyrm trance graphically ruin III changes to a random egi appears every cast and does an attack. Damage is same as it was.

[magnanimousCynic]

Some more minor suggestions that I thought of earlier;

Pet Damage is shown as if you did the damage yourself. This helps shows how much the pet directly contributes to battle compared to now, where their damage is hidden with the other players. If players don't like this due to it mixing their damage with the pet, maybe it could be an option in the character settings?

SMN skills get a minor nerf in damage (maybe 10%, possibly done as a trait) in exchange for higher Pet Damage, equaling about the same or slightly more to compensate for Pet AI (maybe also a pet move speed increase?). This is another change to make the pets a bigger part of your damage, a main thing that people want from "a better SMN", without giving SMN as a whole a straightline buff.

[Silverquick]

Some more minor suggestions that I thought of earlier;

Pet Damage is shown as if you did the damage yourself. This helps shows how much the pet directly contributes to battle compared to now, where their damage is hidden with the other players. If players don't like this due to it mixing their damage with the pet, maybe it could be an option in the character settings?


SMN skills get a minor nerf in damage (maybe 10%, possibly done as a trait) in exchange for higher Pet Damage, equaling about the same or slightly more to compensate for Pet AI (maybe also a pet move speed increase?). This is another change to make the pets a bigger part of your damage, a main thing that people want from "a better SMN", without giving SMN as a whole a straightline buff.

That as an example is something that won't work and will create a class imbalance issue... but when you play DPS classes you understand this.

Its what NOT to do.

Example here:
Why does the SMN come out so far ahead of the BLM in damage in higher level instances?

Well the BLM will be doing a large chunk of damage after 3 seconds. Say 6000 (not including thunder procs and fire procs, and not talking Enochian and Fire IVs)

The SMN meanwhile will be doing 2000 in DoTs and the pet will be doing 1000 in damage... while the SMN will cast a 3000 damage spell.

Seems balanced on the surface right?

So why does it come out so lobsided in the SMN's favor?

Because the BLM is stationary while doing damage, the SMN has free movement. So in ANY instance where there's heavy mechanics, which is just about all higher level instances... the BLM's Damage completely stops. While the SMN still has 3000 damage on target from Pet and DoTs. So suddenly at the end of the fight the SMN has outdamaged him by an enormous degree. The more you increase pet damage, the worse this will becomes. And then it starts to overshadow even OTHER DPS melee jobs who still will have to move at some point.

So the more damage you leave on the SMN the more controllable this is from a Class Balance standpoint.

The flipped side is... if you reduce this damage... then you start to affect the SMN OUTSIDE of instanced dungeons.

This is the real reason I suspect the SMN hasn't seen any new DoT additions since ARR either and likely will not see any more of them in the future.

Again the real reason you need to go with more Aetherflow stacks and controllable, balanceable powers the way Dreadwyrm and Deathflare are.

Now... without the movement, the BLM is going to come out on top in Single Target damage...

His Enochian and Fire IVs are doing more damage to a single target than your Deathflare/Teraflare.

You do one Deathflare... to his 4 Fire IVs. Deathflare though is AoE so hits multiple targets.... So it would be like us being able to do Deathflare 4 times in a row. It shakes out that because of this we end up being able to clear large armies of mobs due to the massive AoEs we have, but he COULD end up being that compared to the SMN in Single Target Boss Mobs. If not for the movement problems and massive amounts of mechanics at high levels. That's a Dev screw up though... not an actual Class Powers balance issue. The real issue to solve this is bringing Swiftcast, and Surecast to about 30 second CD or less for a BLM and making his Manashield able to absorb more damage if he has to stand in AoEs.

[Shurrikhan]

Snip

So, would Summoner would be significantly easier to balance if its AoE damage were reined in? Its AoE damage has been known to be "king" so long as mobs are up for at least 5 ticks, but I haven't personally experienced enough back to back comparisons between it and BLM with equal gear on each to compare their metrics thoroughly. However, it seems reasonable to me that if SMN had its AoE reined in it would face less of a niche bonus from certain fights that allow for by-event AoE burst, around which SMN seems more manipulable to me than BLM, and could therefore have some of its primary output raised.

This might be similar to the (albeit awkward) AoE tapering effect placed on Holy and Flare, or perhaps something new, such as doubling the duration of all diseases you've placed on the target or any enemy within 8 yalms of it and then spreading those diseases evenly (rounded to the nearest tick count) over all enemies within 8 yalms, extending the duration of all preexisting diseases up to their maximum duration. In the latter case, the dps would be similar, but more slightly Aetherflows would have to be spent and more DoTs cast over time in order to maintain a mass plague. In this way, AoE DPS is tapered slightly, even while made a bit more fluid (no wasted duration from refreshing DoTs via Bane).

I suppose we could also attempt to specifically increase SMN's single-target turret damage through a new mechanic. Just as a parallel, consider this mechanic from an another MMO briefly: each consecutive (maximum-cast time) cast of a particular spell allowed the caster to channel its spell for an additional 15% casting time, compounding, for 20% more damage, compounding, to a maximum of 3 stacks. Each time the spell is cancelled, interrupted, or cast at less than its maximum duration, one stack is removed. While the variable cast time would be impossible with XIV's slow tick rate, so long as the ideal cast count fits with the filler portion of a CD window that would allow for the mechanic, this would theoretically work well. (In practice, it may also require that the effect does not fade when the mechanic fades, so long as the spell started during the effect, as long begged for with Enochian's double-checking to match its workings with AF3/UI3's singly-checked double-speed casts and reduced mana costs on opposite elements.)

E.g.
Cast time: 2.5, 2.875, 3.3, 3.8
Relative maximum potency: 200, 240, 288, 346

To better balance the pair starting from its contender instead, giving BLM a traited half-CD Swiftcast (60s > 30s) would indeed allow for much greater usage of Flare and greater mobility in general. As far as simple fixes going a long way, your suggestion definitely seems to me as well like it'd have the most bang for the buck. In the end, the BLM is still most hampered by its long Convert CD in regards to Flare usage in combat, especially now that the low-cost Fire IV actually deals more potency than the all-consuming nuke (albeit at lower minimum mana cost, iirc), so this would primarily play into the occasional mobile F4 or AF-refreshing F1, or Flare only as an AoE.

The only thing that frightens me about it as how damn well BLM scales compared to most jobs. Given high enough secondary stat percentiles, even a Foe-less BLM will outperform a Monk in any length of DPS race, simply because each stat weighs slightly to significantly higher for BLM than anyone but Bard (with its Crit contribution). I want QoL and niche-breaking changes wherever possible, but whenever fights advantage the BLM, it often seems by the end of every expansion to be the least in need of a buff, as long as its handled by a good player.


:: Still working on Post #2... >.>

As usual, apologies for excessive wall of text.

You should never really apologize for text-walls. : P
Thanks for all the ideas!

[Silverquick]

So, would Summoner would be significantly easier to balance if its AoE damage were reined in? Its AoE damage has been known to be "king" so long as mobs are up for at least 5 ticks, but I haven't personally experienced enough back to back comparisons between it and BLM with equal gear on each to compare their metrics thoroughly. However, it seems reasonable to me that if SMN had its AoE reined in it would face less of a niche bonus from certain fights that allow for by-event AoE burst,around which SMN seems more manipulable to me than BLM, and could therefore have some of its primary output raised.

I see.... so you don't actually play a SMN like most of those in this thread...who only want to change to their version of a job and probably wouldn't play it anyway even if it was what they want to turn it into. you just want a new job. So you really DO actually just want a beastmaster style job... not an a SMN.

The base answer is NO it would not be easier to balance if its AoE were reigned in.

Well for the record I did play BLM and SMN in the same gear up the levels. At present BLM is 57 and SMN is obviously 60th and my actual main.

So the answer to your question is no... AoE damage is completely different from Single Target. They have different uses... for different situations.

REASON...
You only find large crowds of mobs as "Trash packs" or cannon fodder minions. This portion of the dungeon is where any AoE class... much like the Control Wizard of D&D thrives (Also known as the original D&D Magic User). Its in multi-target environments where he plies his skills. In other games this is what you would call Crowd Control... whether its by something like an AoE sleep or Mez or whether its a Huge Fireball that blows them all up... this is the "Controlling the Battlefield".

The Single Target Spellcaster is much more akin to the one on one mage, with the Huge Powerful one shot type mega spells that you see the BLM using. These are the Boss Mob battle guys (Fire IV). The AoE guy (much like the Summoner) clears the way for the Single Target damagers to step in and do their thing. Hence, this is where the BLM shines.

While the AoE damage is great to get you there... its a little weak in single target situations and doesn't do as much damage. This is evidenced when you see both the BLM and the SMN are standing side by side where the BLM.... can nuke his heart out.

I could go through the levels for you but I'll just stop short and give you a basic breakdown example of what I mean.

The SMN will be doing a 6000 maybe Crit for 10K damage spell in an AoE radius... but once he's done it he'll be expended. So that's the extent of his big whammy on the Boss mob... So he's done 6000-10,000 damage.

The BLM will then step in, kick in Enochian and do 4 spells at 7000 damage each, landing huge chunks out of the Boss Mob's health with each one. Hitting a couple for 12,000 damage... so he's done 7000 + 7000 + 12,000 + 12000...

Who was more valuable here in these shoes?

Now we reverse the shoes...

On the way to the Boss Mob... they run into 10 mobs at once.
The SMN kicks in Dreadwyrm and Deathflares for 6000 damage... on all 10... maybe critting for 10,000 on a couple of them. 7 x 6000 + 3 x 10,000

The BLM uses Fire II on 12 of them doing 2500 damage on all 10... maybe critting for 4000 damage here and there. 7 x 2500 + 3 x 4000

Who was more valuable in this situation?

That's the answer to your question.

They are different tools for different jobs. One excels in one portion of it... another excels in the other.

As I said... the SMN and BLM compliment and mirror each other as equal but opposite. Hence why they are very well balanced at this time.

This might be similar to the (albeit awkward) AoE tapering effect placed on Holy and Flare, or perhaps something new, such as doubling the duration of all diseases you've placed on the target or any enemy within 8 yalms of it and then spreading those diseases evenly (rounded to the nearest tick count) over all enemies within 8 yalms, extending the duration of all preexisting diseases up to their maximum duration. In the latter case, the dps would be similar, but more slightly Aetherflows would have to be spent and more DoTs cast over time in order to maintain a mass plague. In this way, AoE DPS is tapered slightly, even while made a bit more fluid (no wasted duration from refreshing DoTs via Bane).

This is all completely irrelevent once you understand what I posted above...

They are used for different situations... so the BLM will come out on top in one situation... the SMN comes out on top in the other...

In reality they are closer than that in actual damage... but I needed you to understand where they differ... and why... you can't clip one and assume it fits the other.

One is stronger on one side, the other is stronger in the other. This is their balance point and how they are balanced against each other in the grand scheme of things. Remove that AoE damage from the SMN and you only gimp him... so now he has substandard AoE and no nich where he filled it perfectly before... and still allowed the BLM to flourish in his nich.

Aka... actual balance between the two Magical DPS Jobs in the game.

I suppose we could also attempt to specifically increase SMN's single-target turret damage through a new mechanic.

That is the serious mistake... because right now the two compliment each other. If you did that... the two would STEP on each other instead.

Now you created a conflict in the game balance between the two DPS Jobs... where they operated in harmony with each other prior.

And screwed everything up.

To better balance the pair starting from its contender instead, giving BLM a traited half-CD Swiftcast (60s > 30s) would indeed allow for much greater usage of Flare and greater mobility in general. As far as simple fixes going a long way, your suggestion definitely seems to me as well like it'd have the most bang for the buck. In the end, the BLM is still most hampered by its long Convert CD in regards to Flare usage in combat, especially now that the low-cost Fire IV actually deals more potency than the all-consuming nuke (albeit at lower minimum mana cost, iirc), so this would primarily play into the occasional mobile F4 or AF-refreshing F1, or Flare only as an AoE.

No actually it has nothing to do with that at all. But I also realize you don't play any of these jobs you want to suddenly rework out of nowhere... and without good reason.

The basic problem the BLM has in half the high level instances is that he LITERALLY CANT sit and do damage, there's too much movement. OTHER single target jobs and other melee single target damagers aren't as affected by it and can still play the game because their attacks are instant... and only have a recast timer... the BLM has a full blow cast time AND a recast timer... this is his balance point for doing such a large chunk of damage...

One problem... if he cannot ever plant himself TO do that damage... ALL that damage potential is for nothing...

So when it comes to high level instances that require a lot of movement it ends up being a situation where the BLM can't even participate...

Hence... the fix for the BLM has nothing to do with anything you're saying... He has to use Quickcast, Surecast, and Manawall and it needs to be much more effective than they are right now for the BLM Job.... if they are going to continue requiring THAT much in movement mechanics in Dungeons and Raids. Or you may as well just remove the Job entirely because NO amount of DPS you give him will ever be able to be used anyway.


Now you said SOOO much that I probably missed a few things. because the window you type in is tiny... and you made a mountain of a paragraph.

So if I missed something just bring it up again.

[Shurrikhan]

snip

I will try to keep my responses brief for digestibility.

1. I said I hadn't played BLM often enough immediately before or after a SMN at the same ilvl to compare their metrics as well as I'd like before attempting to pinpoint their points of balance. I never said I had few hours on Summoner, which to me is what matters a hell of a lot more than whether some sense of job "loyalty" prevents me from playing anything else seriously. When raiding, I tend to play what class seems to suit the fight, or the tier as a whole, best given my surrounding member's composition. I'm a fill. That said, I suppose I will have to trust my experience on a BLM, regardless of allowing my SMN to slip ahead in ilvl, a bit more than I trust that of yours with a BLM at 57, even as clearly insightful as you must be to have determined that raid design's movement requirements have made BLM inviable without having stepped foot in a single HW raid on said BLM.

2. I don't see how you can go out of your way to poke holes in BLM's design over its dependence on turret-time and then say that niche differences can be forgiven due to the two caster classes' skillsets "complimenting" each other. To me at least, the caster role in general is known to have superior AoE skills, and this has been the case throughout XIV's history. However, I don't see why the Summoner and Black Mage should need be diversified by whether or not they're "battlefield control" mage or a "one-on-one" mage. Differences in the timings by which AoE or ST damage is output seems plentiful variation; enough to make the jobs feel different without forcing either into an isolated niche. Your proposed "harmony" suggests a consistent double-caster composition, but this is rarely the case; more often, casters are forgone outright at high levels of play in HW unless their LB is specifically required. Were your classification of AoE and ST mage truly the case, one would be taken only to certain fights, and then further fade from the majority of those fights, too, as soon as the rest of the party could meet the AoE requirements with the single-target mage alone, allowing the other caster to better aid their clear times between add burn phases. Because not every fight has equally weighed inclusion of AoE phases by which the mass-attack mage can play his part to make way for the rest consistently, this cannot be stable nor inclusive design.

3. I've not forgotten that BLM is highly dependent on consistent, immobile uptime. I've mentioned as much multiple times in the post you're quoting. Since you proposed that SMN's greater access to mobility was a point of concern to any attempt to balance the job, I suggested three approaches: increased turret-time dependence for SMN, increased mobility (as per your earlier suggestion) on BLM, and increased potential output from SMN's current immobile casting in exchange for reduced burst AoE potential (thereby reducing the gap in maximum ST output--currently slightly BLM dominant, and by-event or burst AoE output--SMN dominant).

Now you said SOOO much that I probably missed a few things. because the window you type in is tiny... and you made a mountain of a paragraph.
So if I missed something just bring it up again.

If you feel the need to respond to a part of a given post before you've had the time to read or digest all that's been said, but still feel like you need to suggest the context of the whole post, I'd recommend duplicating the tab, replying in one, and having the original in the other. You can split the screen to a half or so each or, if on Windows, alt-tab between browsers if you've split one off, or ctrl-tab between tabs if left on the same browser.

[Duelle]

The challenge: be thorough. What, if any new mechanics would you create? How would you solve the “pet problem”? Will there be a reason we use books? Etc., etc.

Where to begin...

1) Keeping the pets: Assuming we want to make pets relevant, there could be mechanics added that improve overall performance of the pet via actions taken by the master. Not stuff like Rouse, but more subtle and constant effects. For example, imagine if using Energy Drain increased an egi's damage dealt and attack speed by 20% for 45s. Part of optimal gameplay would thus require the SMN to learn to pace their use of Energy Drain so that the buff doesn't fall off. Ramp up mechanics could also work in this case as well (say that an egi deals increased damage on targets under the effect of your Bio, Bio II, and Miasma).

2) More pets: This has been a peeve I have with the direction the job was taken, since I still argue that SMN should at the least have the 6 main egis to correspond to the 6 main primals we fought in ARR. Each egi could and should have a different role and purpose. The downside to this is that gameplay currently doesn't require enough input from the player. We don't have adds that need to be CCd in raid fights. We don't have enemy abilities that must be interrupted in raid fights in order for you to get a clear. Shiva-egi could enter as a CC pet, Leviathan-egi could enter as an anti-caster pet, but without gameplay actually giving them any use, it'd be a wasted gesture.

3) Redesign: If we want trances, then the job needs to be built from the ground up for them. Currently it not only suffers from schizophrenic design, but also has needless overlap since you basically have two Aetherflow systems on top of each other. Turning Aetherflow into a resource to be generated by certain skills and then using that for trances or utility skills would be the way to go. I could probably do a write up for a complete trance-based SMN, but I don't have time for that at the moment.

There's also this.

[Silverquick]

2) More pets: This has been a peeve I have with the direction the job was taken, since I still argue that SMN should at the least have the 6 main egis to correspond to the 6 main primals we fought in ARR. Each egi could and should have a different role and purpose. The downside to this is that gameplay currently doesn't require enough input from the player. We don't have adds that need to be CCd in raid fights. We don't have enemy abilities that must be interrupted in raid fights in order for you to get a clear. Shiva-egi could enter as a CC pet, Leviathan-egi could enter as an anti-caster pet, but without gameplay actually giving them any use, it'd be a wasted gesture.

Yeah that's why Pets or any new pets are a bad idea... and won't work either.

Summoner is a DPS job in this game. There's a reason only ONE summon ever gets used while the others are little more than benchwarmers...

Garuda has Contagion... for +15 seconds of Bio/Miasma/Bio 2 on your DoT casts... (Bio 40 per tick, Miasma 35 per tick, Bio II 35 per tick... for 5 ticks (15 seconds)) ... total Potency 550 in a BANE Area of Effect or AoE. Plus Aerial Blast 250 potency AoE.

Ifrit has Flaming Crush every 30 seconds... ie 110 potency or 220 potency every 60 seconds... and Inferno (Enkindle) for 300 potency in a cone...

Garuda = BANE AoE 550 potency attack (60 sec recast) + 250 potency attack (Enkindle, 5y circle) = 800 potency in attacks.
Ifrit = 220 potency (60 seconds) + 300 potency (Enkindle, 5y cone) = 520 potency in attacks

Its a no brainer as to why Ifrit sits the bench. Titan is a tank... so not usable unless the actual Tank goes down or DCs.

ANY NEW PET a summoner gets...

Their last two abilities will need to dish out at least 800 potency in attacks in 60 seconds... or they will be sitting the bench too. Which means then Garuda will sit the bench and never be used again.

At this time, the SMN is an AoE class designed to take out large groups of mobs. Both with DoTs and DDs. With Pets, Spells, and DeathFlares.