SMN should be the DRG/NIN of casters.

[BubblyBoar]

With the recent patch, BLM is in its rightful place as the SAM of casters and is the second highest DPS job. All this leaves is SMN to be placed and have an role among the other casters. Already, it has a number of DPS increasing support tools and lower DPS than the other two casters. And while everyone may not agree with me, I feel like there's some parallels that the caasters should have to the melees. As of right now, SAM is the highest personal DPS of the melees. MNK and NIN are second with more utility (tho NIN offers WAY more for the damage that it does) and DRG is at the bottom (which should be NIN, but not by that much). I feel like Casters should be the same. BLM at the top, RDM where MNK is, and SMN where NIN and DRG should be.

TL;DR - Spruce up SMN a bit and give them another utility to bring them in line with the other casters. That or buff their current utilities to be as wanted as DRGs or NINs.

[Hyrist]

You... really got that wrong.

Red Mage is effectively the DRG of Casters. Right down to the "If you mess up your retreat utility, you jump right off a cliff." Bit. They have a cast and forget AoE Buff. A dive in utility. A single AoE-relevant 'combo', and a steady DPS curve that takes time to Ramp up to the burst damage portion.

Summoner, is kind of in their own world.

[LunaFaye]

both of you try again

[LunarEmerald]

Red Mage is the bard of casters. Their damage is meant to be lower but they bring more utility.

Summoner should be in between black mage and red mage in dps. They shouldn't match black mage but they should be above red mage because they lack embolden, don't have a good cure and their raise is inferior.

[jackass1203]

Red Mage is the bard of casters. Their damage is meant to be lower but they bring more utility.

Summoner should be in between black mage and red mage in dps. They shouldn't match black mage but they should be above red mage because they lack embolden, don't have a good cure and their raise is inferior.

No way is red mage the caster version of bard. Red mage has just as much utility as summoner except for the dualcast version but if you need to spam heal or spam raise your party then obviously that group isn't going to make it far and you may as well leave. We have embolden yes but summoners have contagion for casters which is just as good if you're running a caster heavy group. If anything they need to buff up summoners to red mage.
If red mage is supposed to be the caster version of bard then I want all the buffs they provide.

[loreleidiangelo]

SMN I think was supposed to be this sort of "middle ground" between BLM in terms of damage and RDM in terms of utility, but the problem is that in the competitive raid world at least, no one is interested in that (and RDM's numbers are frankly too high to support that notion right now). I mean, at this point I'd almost rather they remove my Resurrect and just dispel any illusions of SMN having "utility" and just make us a damage monster like BLM.

[Daralii]

SMN I think was supposed to be this sort of "middle ground" between BLM in terms of damage and RDM in terms of utility, but the problem is that in the competitive raid world at least, no one is interested in that (and RDM's numbers are frankly too high to support that notion right now). I mean, at this point I'd almost rather they remove my Resurrect and just dispel any illusions of SMN having "utility" and just make us a damage monster like BLM.

At the very least let Physick scale off of int or put Sustain back. I don't play either Arcanist job and even I know how badly they suffer in that regard.

[Averax]

SMN should be the SMN or SMN of casters

[TankHunter678]

SMN should be constant sustained DPS that continues regardless of movement requirements due to mechanics, rather then a build up to pure power burst like BLM, or burst with some utility like RDM.

It should be that due to their pet and DoTs a SMN being made to move is not losing much DPS, with some burst ability (demi-bahamut) for the times when they need to do burst damage.

So to help with this, give them sustain back to help keep the pet alive and maybe give them some more dots to stack on the boss. Treat em like a Final Fantasy version of the warlock.

Or rework them into being something that is built around building up aether to summon demi-primals to use their signature attacks as major burst damage spells, rather then having a constant pet that their damage needs to be split between. Enhancing the feel of the class to include past FF Summons-esque mechanics rather then the current mostly glorified pets.

[Sandpark]

DRG should be DRG, BLM should be BLM, SMN should be SMN. The Final Fantasy Jobs.

If I wanna play WoW, or Guild Wars 2 I go do that.

Or rework them into being something that is built around building up aether to summon demi-primals to use their signature attacks as major burst damage spells, rather then having a constant pet that their damage needs to be split between. Enhancing the feel of the class to include past FF Summons-esque mechanics rather then the current mostly glorified pets.

Yes this must happen. It will make getting more new summons and more uniqueness easier by virtue of the fact that SE has said the current system probably won't have a bunch of new summons and having a big bad ash summon out perpetually pisses certain players off during the dance mechanics of this game in hard content.

Say like instead of me casting bane or miasma I have a special summon that has those powers, summon Kirin for cures, alexander for buffs, phoenix for raises, etc, etc.