SMN - Most Glaring Issues

[Neela]

Bahamut, Devotion and Bane are out of discussion since weeks... don't get your post at all to be honest. the main problem is that with all the effort of being perfect just rewards you with avg. numbers compared to way easier dds. thats why people complain in the end. if it would be possible to deal 6k+ dmg on a perfect rotation or skilllevel (like the 5-6 top tier on fflogs at 4k atm) than nobody would question the cls-design and aetherflow mechanic. but as long as you have to be that focused to deal mid dmg without even the chance to deal with the big players - people should discuss about that.

there are two official statements from SE both seem smn excluding...
1) All jobs rota should be easier to close the cap between casuals and elite (SB-Interview)
2) More effort in certain cls' should be rewarded higher than on other cls (Before the live-letter)

so where do u see smn in both intended statements? both points should fit but not one of them does it atm at its current state.

I think they should just make PvE SMN just like how it is on PvP where you only need one Dreadwyrm Aether cost to Summon Bahamut. I guess that would help a bit with the AoE and overall damage. Maximizing Wyrmwave is still a pain though.

+1 for that ^

said it several times by now – giving the pve profil the same changes smn has in pvp - it would be way more fluent ya ^^

[Ariomi]

The fact is that if the developpers have not clue about what to do with the job, not a single player has a clue about he wants instead.

You are right and wrong. The developers have not a clue, but there's only about every person who complained about Summoner on the forums who know what they want.
They want Summoner's gameplay built upon, and cultivated into something fun, engaging and satisfying to play.

What Summoners are now? Boring, extremely punishing and lack luster.

Spamming Ruin? Atleast Black Mages switch between Fire and Ice spells... Ruin... Ruin 3.... Maybe Ruin 4 every once in awhile. The old Dot gameplay that most summoner's got accustomed to? Torn down. Pets working certain ways? Adjusted in the worst way possible that accentuates the flaws with how the pet behaves. Summoner's in 3.0 was all about the satisfaction of Dreadwyrm trance. Using Ruin 3, Tri Disaster and Festers in Dreadwyrm trance to cram out as much damage as possible. Crit Festers hitting for 15k or Deathflares hitting for around 20k were the most satisfying feeling.

Summoner in any regard now is a highlight of frustration. Lackluster Dots, Pet mechanics that have you begging your pet to use their skill before it throws off your abilities. Spells that hardly do damage, and the same satisfying feeling of Ravaging packs of enemies, replaced as your attacks hardly feel you do damage.

Skills like Devotion, being underwhelming, and frustrating even detrimental from Summoner as they try to position their pet for the most insignificant buff in the world. Dots barely tickle enemies and everything about Summoner feels like an uphill battle when Red Mage seamlessly overtakes us without hardly breaking a sweat in any regard.

[PotatoTree]

They should just delete the job altogether. Being tied with SCH is probably making it too hard to balance. Just delete the whole job and remake it as some other job.

[dinnertime]

They should just delete the job altogether. Being tied with SCH is probably making it too hard to balance. Just delete the whole job and remake it as some other job.

The two jobs feel separate at this point with the new job skills replacing the ACN skills and bonus attributes gone. Right now the only skills they both actively use is Aetherflow, Ruin II, Bane (lol) and Shadowflare. At least that's what I can think of right now.

[-Yuuna-]

Bahamut, Devotion and Bane are out of discussion since weeks...

After playing SMN for some weeks since 4.0 release and read a lot of threads about it, I got my own opinion. Bahamut, Devotion and Bane is a point any longer, but not the most important.

I really hate Bahamut, because of him I couldn't see every mechanics (like the cloud in Susano) and I wiped a party (yeah I wiped a party in Susano, because I saw the cloud too late, shame on me -_-). My problem at this point is: I have no chance to take him away, not so close to me and I'm really glad that they will add a function to reduce his size, I hope that solve the problem.
Devotion…what shall I say about Devotion? I cannot choose at the group list who should get the buff. I have to move my egi. Yeah…I’ll never move my egi again (if it’s not REALLY necessary). I tried it so many times and at the most tries some other player are moving and the buff never hit the person I wanted to get. It also needs a lot of time to place the egi. So they have two options to fix this: Let us choose the player at our group list or let Devotion be a group buff for everyone (with a higher cd or not so strong – if the developer think 5% at all is too strong).
Bane got a huge nerf, but at the moment we just need it in dungeons. So it will be fine, I think. Playing SMN in dungeons works. We can do enough damage to clear it fast. BLM has a better AOE damage, but that’s okay for me.
I want my pet heal back. They can delete Physick for that, this is a skill no one need it at SMN. I totally agree with Yoshi if he says: You wanna heal? Play RDM.

4.0 SMN feels like the developer team designed it for dungeon runs and maybe the 24 man raids – we will see it in the future. And I think they want that we cannot move very much with Bahamut at our side, to reduce the SMN movement.

the main problem is that with all the effort of being perfect just rewards you with avg. numbers compared to way easier dds. thats why people complain in the end. if it would be possible to deal 6k+ dmg on a perfect rotation or skilllevel (like the 5-6 top tier on fflogs at 4k atm) than nobody would question the cls-design and aetherflow mechanic. but as long as you have to be that focused to deal mid dmg without even the chance to deal with the big players - people should discuss about that.

I agree with you completely. The Aetherflow change yesterday is a step in the right direction. Good player will not see any difference, but for the others it is a big change. They didn’t need to wait a lot of time to get the stack back. Changes like this can reduce the cap between casuals and elite. That’s what SE want, right? But this change alone didn’t fix the class problems. In the last years SE told us that BRD and MCH have a lot of supporting skills, because of that they have not a big damage. We didn’t get a lot of supporting skills, so why is our damage worse?
If we didn’t have a lot of supporting skills and get a worse damage, the people see no reason to grab a SMN for raid. And this is a big problem. We all shall be able to use pf for raid, but a lot of players are not really enjoy a SMN in the party.

there are two official statements from SE both seem smn excluding...
1) All jobs rota should be easier to close the cap between casuals and elite (SB-Interview)
2) More effort in certain cls' should be rewarded higher than on other cls (Before the live-letter)

We cannot use Aetherflow abilities in trance, so it might be easier. I heard from SMN starters and ppl who didn’t play this class very often that they love the change, because the rotation feels more fluent and easier for them now.
SMN is very often declared as an easy job. I think that’s the problem here. The developers didn’t see that we have a higher effort to get good damage.

[Angry_Evil]

After clearing O1S and O2S I really feel that mp restrictions of ruin3 are not justified anymore with it being so weak. With r3 spam you can barely hold your 3.8k somewhat dps between bahamut bursts. Probably even if they make it free and let us spam it instantly instead of r2 DPS won't go up too much lol... cause we still need to deal with stupid lining up of everything... ugh. Also kinda sucks that nin does kinda more DPS than me while bringing much better utility and being if not easier to play then at least not as poorly designed.
Also with BLM buff smn rly became pointless weakest caster.
rip
PS
Delaying pulls after wipe cause you need to wait for aetherflow sucks... SE need to address this somehow...

[Neela]

After clearing O1S and O2S I really feel that mp restrictions of ruin3 are not justified anymore with it being so weak. With r3 spam you can barely hold your 3.8k somewhat dps between bahamut bursts. Probably even if they make it free and let us spam it instantly instead of r2 DPS won't go up too much lol... cause we still need to deal with stupid lining up of everything... ugh. Also kinda sucks that nin does kinda more DPS than me while bringing much better utility and being if not easier to play then at least not as poorly designed.
Also with BLM buff smn rly became pointless weakest caster.
rip
PS
Delaying pulls after wipe cause you need to wait for aetherflow sucks... SE need to address this somehow...

yeah I wondered myself as well for the ruin3 mp amount... even ruin4 proc is way cheaper... does any other cls have to deal with a "fillerskill" which is so expensive for nearly no real goal aside of yeah... "filling" your rota?

[TheLenrir]

If it wasn't for the penalty to LB for the same class, a 2x SMN setup would actually be kinda neat. Rotate Ruinations would actually lead to a DPS boost, whether it's significant remains to be tested.

My biggest pet hate right now is simply Bahamut himself. Wyrmwave needs to be adjusted to simply being auto-attack upon your selected target. This alone would solve the general clunkiness of using GCD/instant casts just to spit out as many wyrmwaves as you can, instead being able to follow your rotation and maximise use of pre-contagion into Demi-bahamut then Tri-disaster to begin 'Operation Ruin', with the 2 En kindles in between.

That would, in my opinion, go a long way to solving some of their issues, at least for the moment.

[Pyitoechito]

I'm not sure if someone else has already mentioned this suggestion, but it would probably help reduce SMN "clunkiness" if Ruin Mastery upgraded Ruin II to Ruin IV instead of Ruin or Ruin III (making it an instant cast). Ruin IV procs would then no longer impede any oGCD weaving (especially useful during Bahamut phases), so there would be no issues with casting it every time it's available.

Even though it would be a nerf, it would probably be for the best if Addle didn't trigger Bahamut's Wyrmwave. Addle is a defensive cooldown and this manner of usage was most likely not intended.

[Sunako]

I did 10min summoner parse and 10min blm parse with same ilvl 318 gear and blm damage was around 4.6k dps and summoner 3.9k dps. I wonder what utility from summoner cover that 700 dps loss or am i playing this class totally wrong.