How can we be DoT Mages with no DoTs?

[Eloah]

So I've been watching the Skill videos regarding the new, and remade skills for all of the Jobs, and well.... What happened to SCH and SMN? How can we be considered DoT mages now if we don't have DoTs. I understand consolidation but this is sorta overkill? I was worried about losing Aero on SCH, but, oh boy, I wish that was all I would lose. Now both jobs only have 2 DoTs, lots of Jobs have only 2 DoTs; and their AoE got nerfed to all hell. WHY!!?? SMN Has some other utilities that will make it more "entertaining" to play, but SCH now I'm just reduced to spamming Broil II. We don't even get an AoE skill to spam like Holy or Gravity. I guess I better enjoy SCH while I can, T.T

What do other people think, good change bad change? I know we just have to wait and see but like ARGH!!!! this feels like the Bard/Machinist cast times all over again. And we'll have to wait until 5.0 for a rework, T.T. My favorite Job seems less fun now.

[Tsumdere]

People complained about Summoners being DoT mages and not summoners. They are clearly trying to fix that.

That being said, I like the DoT mage playstyle so I'm not a fan of the changes for now, but I'll have to see how it actually plays.

[Vespar]

I'm going to plop my response in another thread directly in here. You still have dots, but thats not exactly the point. You need to start looking at how your job works AS A WHOLE. Not just 2 or 3 actions.

Folks, its called balancing. Not just one job, but all of them as a whole. They may also have had to reallocate where SMN's dmg is coming from in order to bring some new aspects to the job. So the dmg may not necessarily be reduced overall, it'll likely increase actually. It just wont be from one or two different skills, but from those skills all actively working as a whole.

This doesnt just apply to SMN but to ALL jobs. You must look at your job's kit as a cohesive unit. Not just bits and pieces of a unfinished puzzle.
SMN has alot more dynamics now than just cast some dots and spread them all over. Now you can do that and so much more. Your pets have a greater purpose now as well instead of just using Garuda for contagion.

[zcrash970]

Well considering most classes lost a DoT, I still consider SMN the DoT class

[SomeRandomHuman]

I'm going to plop my response in another thread directly in here. You still have dots, but thats not exactly the point. You need to start looking at how your job works AS A WHOLE. Not just 2 or 3 actions. This doesnt just apply to SMN but to ALL jobs. You must look at your job's kit as a cohesive unit. Not just bits and pieces of a unfinished puzzle.
SMN has alot more dynamics now than just cast some dots and spread them all over. Now you can do that and so much more. Your pets have a greater purpose now as well instead of just using Garuda for contagion.

They also gutted Bane to have fall off after the first mob, and fester saw a 1/3rd drop in potency. These two skills were vital parts of SMN's charm. Aoe that was reliable and low-cost with decent damage and burst on command. Now there's literally no reason to use fester because painflare does the same damage with both dots up but in aoe. Bahamut is not up often enough to justify this.

[Eloah]

Reply

You are clearly missing the reason for this post. I saw your response in the other thread and while i cant say I remember for certain, there I am sure it had merit. But I am specifically questioning why they are removing the DoTs from the DoT mages. There is a reason people are up in arms about some if not a great many of these changes because as of right now they don't make sense and they don't seem to fit together. Some changes we expected, like the Cross Role Skills, and with that we expected replacement skills or a Skill Shuffle. But it looks like the Prune took more than we thought and left more questions than answers. WHM now have a "Lily" system that most people think sucks based on the resource it needs. I questioned why the 2 DoT mages lost their DoTs. SCH and SMN were the DoT mages in this game, and while SMN might be getting other "utility" SCH is being Shafted, damage-wise, by a wide margin. We basically get to spam our 1 Damaging Spell now, and we have NO AoE at all. If we had a Skill like Holy or Gravity that would be different, but we don't. No one is questioning the balance, they are questioning why have most of these adjustments occurred at all when they were already fixed.

[Khalithar]

I personally prefer this direction. Let's see even less emphasis on dots/ruin and more on pets going forward! It's what I've wanted from day 1!

[Freyt]

Calculator in 5.0 will become the new DoT mage.

[Shurrikhan]

People complained about Summoners being DoT mages and not summoners. They are clearly trying to fix that.

I'm going to plop my response in another thread directly in here. You still have dots, but thats not exactly the point. You need to start looking at how your job works AS A WHOLE. Not just 2 or 3 actions.

This doesnt just apply to SMN but to ALL jobs. You must look at your job's kit as a cohesive unit. Not just bits and pieces of a unfinished puzzle.
SMN has alot more dynamics now than just cast some dots and spread them all over. Now you can do that and so much more. Your pets have a greater purpose now as well instead of just using Garuda for contagion.

Well, it's not about to be fixed by leaving the filler just as numbingly dull after removing one of the few parts that felt decent on the job, such as the three DoTs down and three DoTs back flow of Bio II, Miasma, Bio.

And the fact that there were 3 of them is what made their AoE damage burst not quite insane.

Instead, SMN has effectively lost their ST focus options in AoE, as Painflare will always do at least as much damage as Fester, and longer-term AoE has been badly gimped. I'll admit that SMN AoE may have been a bit too strong this expansion, but when SE actively reduces some of the AoE penalty on BLM AoE (e.g. minimum 70% damage on Flare, up from 50%) and allows for more frequent Flare usage, it's far from in sync with other job's progression or apparent design ideology. BLM was not nearly so far behind as to not simply flip the imbalance on its head—and then some—now.

...And then there's SCH.

For an expansion that allegedly prioritized balance, it seems like two out of every three changes are trying to distance themselves from exactly that.

[Selova]

Because Summoners aren't supposed to be Dot mages. They are summoners, their strength is supposed to be tied to creatures they summon, which is what it looks like they are trying to do with the demi-bahamut mechanic.


I think people are too focused on the potency and aoe nerfs, crying that their class is ruined when nothing has been tested at max level yet. We also aren't the only class that's received across the board potency and aoe nerfs, no one knows the state of classes at 70 yet.



From the changes we've seen so far (which are not final by any means yet) it looks like they are trying to design summoner to feel like actual summoners, which is a welcome change from their current playstyle.