Shadowbringer: Summoner Changes Discussion

[Taranok]

Yeah, I'll pass. I've waited years for them to finally make Summoner feel like a Summoner, and actually getting to command my Egis is a big part of that. From where I stand, Flavour is just as important to a job than functionality is - especially in this game where every role tends to be homogenized to a point. I'd rather they try to make changes that keep the class fantasy than turn Summoners into mere Ruin Mages again.
Besides, Aetherflow is a worse offender when it comes to "busywork" than EA is, so if any cuts should happen, I'd prefer they start there.

Considering that the Egis are the least summoner aspect of summoner, I fail to see your point. I'd seriously delete the Egis and all their associated abilities and completely rework how low level summoner works. To the point where the carbuncles are your low level summons, weak and frail. Then by 50 you would instead summon Demi-Ifrit and Demi-'Ruda, possibly Demi-Titan, and by 80 you'd do Bahamut and Phoenix, and possibly a third summon.

I would then take abilities like enkindle or Egi-Assault and turn those into "Let's summon old summons to attack either for a singular attack or for longer priods of time, but we purely summon them." So you could have demi-bahamut and Phoenix as your primary summons, and when you enkindle you summon Ifrit/Garuda/Titan, either individually (random rotation) or all 3.

That would make me feel more like a summoner than having to tell the carbuncle to do a left-handed attack instead of a right handed attack every 30 seconds, and DB/DP make me feel more like a summoner than the egis ever can or ever will.

Like I think SE is moving on the right path but I think they missed their mark.
I like being so active, it's not that I have too much to do, it's that I have too many (separate) things/timers to keep track of that my brainmeats get so cluttered.
It's like I'm frantically playing catch-up with my cooldowns @@

It does eventually start to move into a flow, but my issue is that in addition to tunnel visioning, I spend so much time trying to get out all of the oGCDs that I literally don't have time for something as basic as casting outburst, our filler aoe spell, except during DWT specifically where everything's instant cast. The class is just not set up to handle this many oGCDs this often and this quickly, and pretty much no class likes repeatedly and consistently double weaving.

If this were Red Mage, it would at least make some sense because RDM has every other GCD being instant cast as a guarantee, but SMN is not and it can't handle the sheer bulk of abilities flying out, so it clashes heavily with the actual abilities of the class.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

It does eventually start to move into a flow, but my issue is that in addition to tunnel visioning, I spend so much time trying to get out all of the oGCDs that I literally don't have time for something as basic as casting outburst, our filler aoe spell, except during DWT specifically where everything's instant cast. The class is just not set up to handle this many oGCDs this often and this quickly, and pretty much no class likes repeatedly and consistently double weaving.

If this were Red Mage, it would at least make some sense because RDM has every other GCD being instant cast as a guarantee, but SMN is not and it can't handle the sheer bulk of abilities flying out, so it clashes heavily with the actual abilities of the class.

I pointed this out in the other thread, but it feels like the intent is for us use Ruin II to weave oGCDs and to use the instant Ruin IIIs provided by the initial DWT to dump as many of our charged oGCDs as we can, e.g. try and get Energy Drain, Fester, and both Egi Assaults on complete CD before the end of DWT, so we can be casting Ruin III more often, only using Ruin II/IV as necessary to cast an oGCD.

[Taranok]

I pointed this out in the other thread, but it feels like the intent is for us use Ruin II to weave oGCDs and to use the instant Ruin IIIs provided by the initial DWT to dump as many of our charged oGCDs as we can, e.g. try and get Energy Drain, Fester, and both Egi Assaults on complete CD before the end of DWT, so we can be casting Ruin III more often, only using Ruin II/IV as necessary to cast an oGCD.

I mean, that's what I'm doing, and that causes the class to error like mad for the egi and the sheer raw density of everything is insane, in addition to keeping track of encounter mechanics. The fact that every 30 seconds is a guaranteed 5 oGCDs, you have 5 on one minute, and 3 on the next, the class is just absolute insanity. Then you have devotion (3m) and enkindle (even more for DWT). And, who can forget, TD, which you need to pump out every 30 seconds except once per 2 minutes.

There's something around 19 separate oGCDs you have to get out in the opener, and you average close to one oGCD per every other GCD on a class that's supposed to actually be hardcasting spells. It doesn't play nicely if you have inconsistent ping and the sheer volume of crap you need to take care of, regardless of how it's intended to be used, is way too high for any class to reasonably justify.

I can't think of a single class in the history of the game that has had to pump out as many oGCDs as Summoner has to in ShB, it blows MCH and Bard, the Multitasking champions of SB and HW, out of the water on density. This type of playstyle would be fine on a class intended to handle it, like Bard, Machinist, or Dancer. But it's not fine on caster DPS.

[Elgeron]

I can't think of a single class in the history of the game that has had to pump out as many oGCDs as Summoner has to in ShB, it blows MCH and Bard, the Multitasking champions of SB and HW, out of the water on density. This type of playstyle would be fine on a class intended to handle it, like Bard, Machinist, or Dancer. But it's not fine on caster DPS.

But why not? What is wrong with a creating a busy caster? Seriously asking, as I'm not that knowledgeable. To me, this iteration of SMN is being very fun. While it is true I was having issues at the beginning, but I can already feel myself improving and becoming better, with less and less tunnel vision. I feel like SMN gives me a goal to work towards, and I'm each possible moment seeking to practice and improve in real combat situation. The fast pace of the class is mind blowing, it feel almost every second there is something to do, and I find this stimulating. The recast time seem to go very well with each other, usually is very easy to make different abilities synch with each other without putting too much though, letting you focus more on execution rather that planning. Is different from the other two casters and its a play style I'm enjoying greatly. Changing from summon to summon fast to adapt has been also quite enjoyable for me.

Said this, some of the changes proposed in this thread seemed interesting, some of yours too, but I would be lying if I said I want for the class to become less "busy". Still, have to reach max level, so perhaps my perception will change then.

the class is just absolute insanity

Funny enough, is the reason I love it. To me it feels like I'm melting the enemy on a barrage of spells and Egis attacks.

[Gallus]

At least half the SMNs I have come across so far couldn't even figure out that Garuda is meant for trash pulls and Ifrit for bosses. Doing incredibly good DPS with current SMN while handling mechanics perfectly? I can see the 0.1% of the SMN playerbase achieving it.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

At least half the SMNs I have come across so far couldn't even figure out that Garuda is meant for trash pulls and Ifrit for bosses. Doing incredibly good DPS with current SMN while handling mechanics perfectly? I can see the 0.1% of the SMN playerbase achieving it.

True, I'll not argue that point. I think you're low-balling the number a little, but the point stands.

[Taranok]

But why not? What is wrong with a creating a busy caster?

First of all, it's worth noting that Summoner typically hasn't been a busy caster. It's busier than BLM, but as of SB despite the tedious micromanagement of contagion, it was never a busy caster. Red mage was always the "busy" caster and it has a playstyle that best suits a busy caster. That is, half of all GCDs, always, are instant cast. So it has a lot of opportunity to make use of oGCDs, which it has many of, though ironically nowhere close to the new Summoner.

After this, the classes "busier" than Red Mage are always the Ranged DPS classes. Bard, Machinist, and now Dancer. Of these, Dancers appears to be the least busy, but it's still moderately busy, and I believe Bard is the most busy as of ShB. So if you want a busy playstyle, the playstyle exists both in caster form and in other DPS, including melee.

What breaks it for summoner is that the class effectively doesn't have enough opportunity to do what it needs to do. At level 72, you basically have enough of the rotation to know everything if you never enkindle or use EAs during Phoenix, it's basically the same just mix in an Enkindle Phoenix oGCD and you'd get it.

The classes breaks in about 3 areas. 1, the opener has literally about 18 oGCDs it needs to cast within 15 seconds. It needs to double weave but if you run into ping issues, double weaving is likely beyond your capabilities to reliably do. I've noticed some SMN oGCDs double weave worse than others, making the entire issue more frustrating than it needs to be as well.

The second is that the nature of how EA works means it is very easy to get the game to throw errors at you and eat the cooldown without giving you anything to show for it. Or maybe it does and the error is erroneous, but it throws out errors like mad during normal play.

The third is that the AoE rotation, due to how busy the ST rotation is, is so problematic that you flat out cannot cast Outburst outside of DWT because you don't have enough time and are flatly inundated with too many oGCDs to cast, so the rotation especially in AoE is constantly spent either not casting anything, or casting ruin 2/4 to get out your ESes, your Painflares, your banes, and your EAs. This isn't even factoring in Enkindle and Devotion, which you still have to find room for.

Play the class at level 60 and, despite it having some of the worst offenders of the rotation around, you'll notice the class flows a lot better overall, albeit the aoe rotation is still a complete and utter nightmare.

[Gallus]

Personally, I completely go nuts with the aoe, I find it a lot less problematic, because let's be honest here, when you have 4-5 mobs you aren't going to throw a Ruin II just so that you can weave that painflare...you are just going to spam outburst and clip painflare. AOE is simpler, in the sense you spread your dots with bane, start spamming outburst and then clip one or two ogcds between each outburst, weaving here isn't worth it unless you are under DWT or FBT.

Now...your single target rotation is a whole another story...

[ChaoticCrimson]

Personally, I completely go nuts with the aoe, I find it a lot less problematic, because let's be honest here, when you have 4-5 mobs you aren't going to throw a Ruin II just so that you can weave that painflare...you are just going to spam outburst and clip painflare. AOE is simpler, in the sense you spread your dots with bane, start spamming outburst and then clip one or two ogcds between each outburst, weaving here isn't worth it unless you are under DWT or FBT.

Now...your single target rotation is a whole another story...

To be fair, in a lot of cases you'll probably want that Ruin II every now and then for double-weaves rather than single. For instance, you can double-weave that Painflare with one of the Egi Assaults/Enkindle for added aoe, or you may need to refresh DoTs with Tri-Disaster and Bane. I know it's not overly important in an average dungeon with trash pulls, but it's definitely a consideration.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

I've found that not trying to double weave Egi-related oGCDs(Enkindle, Egi Assault I, Egi Assault II) has helped. You can do an Egi Assault with non-Egi oGCD, or two non-Egi oGCD's together, but never two Egi-related oGCDs. That's how you get errors.