Why Summoner Needs Help

[Neela]

IMO, SMN is currently stronger than people think, he is not the DPS god, like the current Samourai, but we can't say that he is underpowered. But I think it requires too much effort to make the best out of this job and i would like to see this jobs improved, without necessary increasing it's power.

actually this - its just way harder to reach a decent amount of numbers - f.e. compared to fflogs top Rdm (4,565) on Susano Ex, the top Smn (4,348.5) just lacks in 220 dps but if you look at it further down the road you see that all top 50 Rdms are above 4000 dps while just the top 4 Smns are able to pass the 4000 dps-line.

The weakness in this job is clearly the effort and punishment if you mess up a single step in your rota - one mistake and you fall down all the road without a chance to stand up in any way... we can compete but nearly nobody is able to play this cls that well to show its real power... though wasnt SB about making everything easier? Seems they forgot smn in this manner... : /

[Schondetta]

i dont usually comment here but the last part about messing up the AT i feel is completely relevant. its ridiculous a simple bane or fester misclick and all the sudden your down 60 seconds. i can go make a pot of coffee stretch my legs and come back before i can do anything in the fight again.There is already too many frikin buttons to press

[Angry_Evil]

[B]Bio III, Miasma III and Tri-Disaster's changes don't make up for the loss of Bio in our arsenal

Yes, because it was not their purpose to compensate any nerfs.
I don't get how you people still don't get it... All nerfs - dots, ruin3, spur etc. are there only cause of bahamut. Square was cautious that bahamut will make smn too OP so they nerfed us a little too much. But not as much as people seem to think.

Black Mage can get 2600 potency every two minutes, but Summoner, whose entire gameplay is about building up to a big hoorah, a brilliant finish... is relegated to a mere 1088 potency in two minutes, with Deathflare only providing 800 more in this time.

Why are you forgetting that bahamut is not only 1088 potency of akh morn but also 1600+ potency with 10-12 wyrmwaves? But it's pointless to discuss potencies anyway, what matter is what DPS smn making compared to BLM. And it is comparable.

Bye bye AoE! It's been said before, said again, and I'll also add to that chorus: Bane has been utterly butchered.

Again... SMN aoe is still on par or a little weaker than BLMs. I checked it specifically in 70lvl dungeons. Why people are whining about bane all the time and forgetting bahamut again and again? Do you even have ANY aoe dps numbers for summoner? To actually compare something?

JUST TO MATCH BLACK MAGE OR RED MAGE.

Do you ever saw actual aoe dps numbers for rdm blm and smn?

Why the new Aethertrail Attunement is a Mistake

This is pretty much the only one thing I'm 100% agree with. I dunno what ideas for smn SE had but this new aetherflow system failed. It disrupts rotation flow so smn needs to cancel DWT early for aetherflow to refresh right before bahamut...

[Neela]

But it's pointless to discuss potencies anyway, what matter is what DPS smn making compared to BLM. And it is comparable.

I agree to nearly everything you said above ^^

the point behind all the complains is just that blm/rdm are easier to play/reach those numbers - some smns already proved they could compare their dmg at least with blm maybe even with rdm. its just the majority can't archive that same amount any longer without putting a hugh portion of extra effort into it -> complaining is so much easier you know...

but even if we can reach an on par level its way harder for smn than ever before - you can't deny this fact - at least in the manner of "balancing" they should adjust the skill/rota synergy here... I don't think it matters on the potecy itself they are okay-ish if you don't mess up or lock your skills out yourself, but the punishment for doing so is a bit hard atm... ^^

[Angry_Evil]

the point behind all the complains is just that blm/rdm are easier to play/reach those numbers - some smns already proved they could compare their dmg at least with blm maybe even with rdm. its just the majority can't archive that same amount any longer without putting a hugh portion of extra effort into it -> complaining is so much easier you know...

Yeah putting more effort to show worse numbers than "no effort" RDM surely doesn't sound fair. I just hope we won't need to wait till 4.2 for next ruin3 buff lol...

but even if we can reach an on par level its way harder for smn than ever before - you can't deny this fact - at least in the manner of "balancing" they should adjust the skill/rota synergy here... I don't think it matters on the potecy itself they are okay-ish if you don't mess up or lock your skills out yourself, but the punishment for doing so is a bit hard atm... ^^

What square can do with smn is very limited. I personally think smn needs full revamp from ground up, to fix this "identity crisis" which was always there and still there. But realistically most they can do - change atherflow again and buff ruin3 potency to like 170-180.

[Gallus]

The only thing I agree about SMN is the fact that it's too hard to pull good DPS with it.

How to make it less punishing:

DWT - Change it so instead of a stance that lasts 15 seconds, it allows for the next 6 Ruin III to cost no mana. Deathflare still finishes the stance. Remove the 10% damage bonus from DWT and slightly buff the base damage of either Bio III and Miasma III or Ruin/Ruin II/Ruin III (or else this new stance could be used to spam indefinite Ruins I with 10% damage bonus). I'd really like this change because clipping your Ruins III in the middle of DWT with enkindle, rouse, aetherpact and shadow flare is clunky as hell and makes me mad every time. You have to either give up on one or two Ruins III or let those buffs sit until your DWT is over.

Bahamut - Just make it AA like the pet independently. Saving your whole arsenal for this thing (which is what you are forced to do now) turns SMN into a "Gonna summon Baha now hopefully nothing screws me over for the next 20 seconds or I'm gonna meet the very bottom of the parser at the speed of the light.

Do this and SMN is automatically on par with SAM and RDM in terms of being zero punishing (in fact, even with these changes SMN would still be slightly more punishing due to having stuff like Shadow Flare, Rouse or Bahamut which can be derp casted in a phase which is either not required or right before a downtime).

[Angry_Evil]

DWT - Change it so instead of a stance that lasts 15 seconds, it allows for the next 6 Ruin III to cost no mana. Deathflare still finishes the stance. Remove the 10% damage bonus from DWT and slightly buff the base damage of either Bio III and Miasma III or Ruin/Ruin II/Ruin III (or else this new stance could be used to spam indefinite Ruins I with 10% damage bonus). I'd really like this change because clipping your Ruins III in the middle of DWT with enkindle, rouse, aetherpact and shadow flare is clunky as hell and makes me mad every time. You have to either give up on one or two Ruins III or let those buffs sit until your DWT is over.

This is pure nonsense. Are you one of this summoners who almost never use ruin 3 outside of dwt?
Punishment everybody is talking about on smn goes from wasting your atherflow stacks - huge punish, losing your bahamut buildup and stacks on death = even more punish, mana problems when after death u need to resummon garuda etc, and if u died with everything on CD- your dps is done for. Reworking of dwt won't help with any punishment mechanics SMN has now....

[Gallus]

This is pure nonsense. Are you one of this summoners who almost never use ruin 3 outside of dwt?

I'm not sure from where you gather I don't cast Ruin III outside of DWT. The 6 next Ruin III costing no mana instead of DWT being a 15 second stance is because the latter makes SMN more vulnerable to random mechanics, disables, phases where movement is required and random screw ups in general.

[Angry_Evil]

I'm not sure from where you gather I don't cast Ruin III outside of DWT. The 6 next Ruin III costing no mana instead of DWT being a 15 second stance is because the latter makes SMN more vulnerable to random mechanics, disables, phases where movement is required and random screw ups in general.

Just a thought. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The 6 next Ruin III costing no mana instead of DWT being a 15 second stance is because the latter makes SMN more vulnerable to random mechanics, disables, phases where movement is required and random screw ups in general.

Sorry but this just doesn't make any sense to me. Sure DWT makes u stay in place and cast ruin3 without moving. But changing r3 to r2 once in dwt for movement etc. is not the end of the world. And certainly not something that makes other summoners uderperform in 4.0 or cry about punishment on forums. You lose your stack before dwt - and your build up and dps screwed for 60+ seconds. Still punishing af

Bahamut - Just make it AA like the pet independently.

I wonder about that tho... I don't dislike idea behind bahamut, how he does something only when we do it. But implementation is problematic. So it's a dilemma do we really need to dumb down bahamut? SO he would do 12 wirmwaves automatically - this certainly will raise summoners significantly, but leave job even more brain dead than it is now. Or should we just say "git gud" to summoners and make them learn how to properly manage bahamut?(then tho smn needs boost anyway cause your efforts are not properly rewarded in this case)

Saving your whole arsenal for this thing (which is what you are forced to do now) turns SMN into a "Gonna summon Baha now hopefully nothing screws me over for the next 20 seconds or I'm gonna meet the very bottom of the parser at the speed of the light.

hmm I don't know how you're playing summoner but it certainly not that punishing for me. Screwing something when u summon bahamut making him cast less wyrmwaves still means you used 3 festers and 2 akh morns giving you decent dps boost. I rarely find myself in the very bottom of the parses if I don't die anyway. Not much people know how to properly play their classes in this game, even if it's "easy" class like RDM...

[Gallus]

This is pure nonsense. Are you one of this summoners who almost never use ruin 3 outside of dwt?
Punishment everybody is talking about on smn goes from wasting your atherflow stacks - huge punish, losing your bahamut buildup and stacks on death = even more punish, mana problems when after death u need to resummon garuda etc, and if u died with everything on CD- your dps is done for. Reworking of dwt won't help with any punishment mechanics SMN has now....

Wasting an aetherflow stack shouldn't be anyone's concern, yes, it punishes you to insane levels, but come on...festering a boss without dots or casting bane on mobs that are far from each other? Talk about failing...
Now, I don't mind even this being changed, make it so that fester does base damage and does increased damage for each dot you have. Bane...just give it something like 20 potency in AOE so that the spell never fails.
You do that and SMN is still hard as f*** to do good DPS with.
On my other reply I was addressing the real stuff that would make SMN less punishing. Not these little irrelevant things like "no longer sustain!" some people like to go over and over...