Summoner Over-Nered (and A few other Problems)

[Ariomi]

No, I don't want other jobs being in the same theme as RDM. RDM has always been the support in the Final Fantasy series; a reasonable mix of damage and heals, that's its thing. I main RDM because that's the theme I prefer playing, not because it's "better" or "stronger" than other jobs, and I played SMN in 3.x because it was closest to that theme even though I knew full well that it wasn't quite to the point I liked. Even if they decided to lower potencies on RDM skills (still amazed they haven't), I'd still want to play it because I'm not playing it for how big its numbers are.

Here's the problem with that. Summoner was the support caster. It was also the king of Aoes. Red Mage comes in, and all that uniqueness about Summoner? Out the window. Only thing Unique about Summoner is it's low damage, Bahamut obscuring people's view, and how worthless it is overall compared to Red Mage. As it stands, Red Mage should be the lowest damage caster, with the most support. For the longest time in this game, More Utility = Less damage to balance it out. Summoner either needs much higher utility, or much higher damage. I don't care which. Black Mage and Red Mage are the only competitive Casters. There's nothing Summoner has that can rival what either of those offer.

SMN is different in that you have to learn how to cycle AoE effects. It's only "limited in AoE" if you have no clue what you're doing, like using Bane on that 12-second trash pack when Painflare, tab-target dots and oh, idk, actual resource management might make you a bit better off. Sure, it's not a perfect system, but it's nowhere near as gimped as you'd think.

Mudras have an 18 sec cd btw~ Ninja's Aoe is on an 18 second cooldown. Foul the big scary Aoe of Black Mage is on 30 Second Cooldown. Never mind that Fire 2 is 50 base potency stronger then Painflare, (and gets buffed by Astral Fire) Nevermind about Flare usage with their new trait. Cycling Through stuff as Summoner shouldn't be necessary. The whole point of bane is that I just spread my dots, and start the rest of my Aoe. Going through and single targeting every add, isn't aoe. It's single target dots. No different then Bard putting all of their dots and every add, except that bard can follow up on that, with quick nock, and Rain of Death.

I'll give you a better example. Look at Scholar. Scholar's Aoe is bane. They put their dots up, and Shadowflare, that's all they have. Whm has Aero 3, to dot everything, Assize, and Holy Spam. Assize is 300 potency, cooldown anywhere from 60 seconds to 48. Aero3 50 potency per add hit with 40 potency over time. Holy? 200 potency with fall off. With aero 3 one assize and one holy, a Whm did 550 potency with 40 potency every tick per add (With some falloff on holy.) Scholar would do 250 potency over 15 seconds with shadow flare, and 70 potency with Bio 2 and Miasma 2 every tick with fall off. Would take Scholar 15 seconds do what that Whm did in about 5.
This is pretty close to how A blm outperforms a summoner in aoe damage. Especially with how long it takes Summoners to use Bahamut in the first place.

Blm and Whmn outperform Smn and Scholar in Aoe. Summoner's whole gimmick since Heavensward is they had better Aoe damage.
4 Fouls every two Minutes at 650 potency with fall of damage vs 2 ahk morns every two minutes at 544 potency. Black Mages Aoe is stronger, and on half the cooldown. 2600 potency worth of Aoe with damage fall off vs 1088 damage with fall off.
Fire 2 at 250 Potency whenever they want, vs maximum 3 Painflares per minute at 200 potency.
Flare's 260 Potency with fall off that they can now use multiple times vs Shadowflare 250
Bane isn't even worth anything since the second target you dot takes 20% less damage. If you have 4 targets, you apply dots on one then bane you have two targets that take 80 potency per tick, one that takes 64 potency and the last takes 32. That's 176 potency total per tick. Painflare in the same situation is 800 potency total. (You are spreading your dots to three other targets. the only potency increase is from those three.)

Tell me one other class that has all of their Aoe's locked behind a one minute cooldown. If they were stronger, I might understand. But there are classes like Black Mage, Like Ninja, that have Aoe on command, that does more damage, with less cooldown. The only class with weaker Aoe damage to my knowledge, is Machinist. (And they never really had Aoe damage to begin with.)

[Kazrah]

Tell me one other class that has all of their Aoe's locked behind a one minute cooldown. If they were stronger, I might understand. But there are classes like Black Mage, Like Ninja, that have Aoe on command, that does more damage, with less cooldown. The only class with weaker Aoe damage to my knowledge, is Machinist. (And they never really had Aoe damage to begin with.)

First off, you forgot Bard having less AoE damage than Summoner unless you're absolutely outstanding at dot management, and before you say something along the lines of "Rain of Death spam", that's an 80 second cooldown for a maximum of 38% uptime (Bane max is 50% uptime unless Aetherflow is prepped ahead of time).

The other thing you're forgetting to factor in for AoE as well are costs. Those "on command" AoE's have heavy costs to them, only being able to do so many of them before whatever resource is being used becomes exhausted, which will happen because not every AoE pack lasts just five seconds. Black Mage (which has intentionally been given far more AoE focus) and occasionally White Mage (once every two minutes) are the only two exceptions to this rule, otherwise all jobs should eventually even out against Summoner AoE. If timed right, Aetherflow can be prepped before each pull and not every pull is going to just explode instantaneously.

Also comparing Summoner to Black Mage, although both casters, is still an apples-to-oranges argument since you're trying to compare a dot caster to a nuke caster. Black Mage is supposed to hit like a truck at the expense of very limited mobility. If they move, they're not really doing anything for damage. If a Summoner has move, dots are still running and the strongest abilities can still be used while moving, so it's not the end of the world. Even Red Mage, despite Chaincast, still has to sit down for at least a couple seconds to take advantage of their mobility potential.

I'm not saying Summoner is perfect. I'm not even saying it's good. I'm saying it's not that bad. If it makes you feel any better, just go point and laugh at Machinist for the next few hours. If Summoner gets buffed in 4.05, good. If Summoner doesn't get buffed, then I guess devs know something that players don't. Maybe more whining might help, because that worked so well in 3.x.....

[Ariomi]

The other thing you're forgetting to factor in for AoE as well are costs. Those "on command" AoE's have heavy costs to them, only being able to do so many of them before whatever resource is being used becomes exhausted, which will happen because not every AoE pack lasts just five seconds. I'm not saying Summoner is perfect. I'm not even saying it's good. I'm saying it's not that bad. If it makes you feel any better, just go point and laugh at Machinist for the next few hours. If Summoner gets buffed in 4.05, good. If Summoner doesn't get buffed, then I guess devs know something that players don't. Maybe more whining might help, because that worked so well in 3.x.....

Objectively, and Comparatively speaking, Summoner is bad. You can compare every class to it's peers in its role. Look at Melee class and see how they compete with each other.
Ninja and Monk both have high damage, with one having more Aoe, and the other being more single target focused. Monk's buff lasts longer, but is only 5% physical damage, Trick attack is shorter but is slightly stronger and includes all damage types. Monk is more single target focuses, and Ninja more balanced to include Aoe. They are both good classes. Neither can completely outshine the other at this point.

Paladin and Dark Knight are also easily comparable, Dark Knight having more damage options, with the ability to shield people like Paladin, but Paladin having more ways to lower the damage the group takes.

Comparing Summoner with Black Mage should be apples to apples. They are both casters. If there is a discrepancy where you can't compare the two then something is wrong.

Before Machinist was also nerfed into the ground, It was comparable to bard. The difference being that Machinist buffed Physical damage, and Bard buffed Magical. Both classes had the ability to regen Mp/tp with different abilities and sacrificed their dps to help the group.

Oh and funny you mention classes Aoe having heavy costs on them. Summoner is the opposite. Not only does Summoner have no on command Aoe, but if want increased Single target dps, You will be spending much more Mana for that damage increase. Ruin 3 is a dps gain over ruin 1 and 2 no matter when you use it. It only costs 3x the mana, for a 50% damage increase. (150 potency vs 100 potency).

And while Black Mage is heavily pressured to stay still and not move, They have tools in their arsenal to keep their dps. Triplecast, Lightning Procs that let their spells be instant, ability to teleport back to their leylines. Their play style was built upon in stormblood, when Summoner's play style was torn down.

Oh and about that snide little jab about people whining. Did you know in 3.X When Summoner had Ruin 3 buffed to 200 potency they could flat out overtake Black Mages in certain fights? People complained about it and then everything was great for awhile. Adds melted, Summoner had a nice little niche for itself.

https://www.fflogs.com/reports/vCGkn...pe=damage-done

The two classes were still comparable for the most part. Black Mage would eventually overtake Summoner's burst damage, (Yes, I said Burst.) But Summoner had more mobility and utility.