Thread: SMN 4.06 Changes

I like the design behind our current SMN; dot mage building up resources for a big summon burst is a good concept and it's a nice callback to the roots of the job in Final Fantasy.

The problem is that the job feels very cluncky, has only caster friendly utility, is doomed to have useless ability slots due to being linked with SCH (like Phisick) and the egi situation is overall a big mess.

My personal view:

The first thing that I think should have been done long time ago is to detach SMN and SCH but I guess that can't happen anytime soon, sharing basic ACN abilities is bad for both and brings us to situations where we have useless skills on our bar (Phisick) which could be swapped for something useful (Sustain).

Bane is in a very bad spot right now, it's almost pointless on very big pulls and kind of defeats the entire point of it being our main AoE skill, it should be buffed back.

The Ruin family of skills is also kind of a mess, we are supposed to spam Ruin, a level 1 skill at level 70, because it's mana efficient...but we really don't want to since it's a big dps loss and forces SMNs to resort to hardcast Ruin III...which is supposed to be our "Use only under DWT" ability.
I suggest to have Ruin III entirely replace Ruin when it's unlocked (with Ruin mp cost) and have it upgrade to Ruin IV temporarly when under DWT.
This gives us a better spammable ability, moves away Ruin IV from the rng roulette and saves us a spot in our bar.

SMN utility is kind of bizarre: Magic vulnerability provided by Contagion is nice but forces us into a single egi and doesn't even last long enough for the entire Bahamuth summon.
Devotion is also not good in its current form: as it is now it's basically a choice between using it randomly and hope it doesn't go to the healer or move near someone else and lose personal dps...and also hope that person wont move away during that.
I think it should be either a party wide buff, mimicking the Balance card or at the very least turn it into a selectable ability so we have actual control on who gets it.

Demi-Bahamuth is a good idea and it's a great way to make FFXIV SMNs feel like an actual Summoner...however even that is very cluncky, like the entire job itself right now.
Making it smaller won't really change anything except forcing SMNs who want to keep it as it is now to be bullied by other people in the party.
I think the best idea would be to leave it as it is now but have it filtered out like any other spell effect in the configuration panel.
It should also not move at all (it's not like it has range issues) giving SMNs control on where to put it (and it's not like it stays out for long) and use Wyrmwaves as normal autoattacks: forcing SMN to use every instant spell (Addle included) to get more Wyrmwaves is not good design and takes most of the fun away from summoning Bahamuth (omg must spam everything before it goes away!!!).
A bit of a peeve of mine but I also think that Enkindle Bahamuth should make it Cast Mega Flare instead of Akh Morn. Having your level 70 ability cast...the very same spell you have been casting since level 60 is a bit boring and not that rewarding, Mega Flare is the classical Bahamuth signature ability in Final Fantasy and would make for a nicer spectacle (same damage, just a different graphical effect).

And then we get to the Egis.
Egis have always been a problem since the release of ARR, we were promised more of them but then the entire job philosophy changed with DWT (and Demi Bahamuth) and they are basically just there, stuck as relics form the past with no clear design.
Not to mention that we basically use the very same one (Garuda) since ARR aswell, with Ifrit being ok but not quite (say goodbye to Contagion!) and Titan being totally useless even for solo activities (not to mention that Bahamuth sends it away, showing incoherence into the entire design of the job).
If I may suggest something I'd say to just...scrap them and rework it so we only have one, making "Summon" a generic ranged egi built mostly around Garuda, removing the knockback ability and putting in Radiant Shield giving us more utility without having to choose between that and Contagion.
This would turn the Egi into our generic support pet and free Summon II and III ability slots which could become something more useful (Sustain? Passive Pet healing trait?)
Carbuncles, Ifrit, Titan etc can become glamour skins, this will also make everyone able to use their favourite pet whenever they want and SE may even add more of them in the future.

SMN has been my main job since 2.0, I still like it and I can see what the devs wanted the class to be and I'm not complaining about turning it into something totally different.
However the job still has major polishing issues and I really hope we'll have our fixes eventually, FFXIV never had that big class balance issues but the situation as of now is pretty dire, I hope to be able to keep on playing the class I like even in "serious" content.

Originally Posted by paoweeotter

Offtopic bump.

For the expert Summoners out there... Are you guys always able to have Aetherflow up during Bahamut phase? How do you guys manage that? Mine always seems to be on cooldown.

I keep Aetherflow on cooldown and it never aligns with Bahamut phase. Help! Any tips appreciated!

Not an expert but after your opener (where you generally get in and out of your first DWT asap), the 2 minute general SMN rotation is:

Aetherflow
15 seconds of festers
15 seconds in DWT
30 seconds spaming ruin
Aetherflow
20 seconbs of bahamut + Festers
25 seconds spamming ruin
15 seconds in DWT

The key is that Bahamut is actually available for 30 seconds after you leave DWT, but you hold it until your next Aetherflow is up. Doing that, everything actually lines up really nicely.