Shadowbringer: Summoner Changes Discussion

[Nobuyuki_Sanada]

I think what scares me the most with summoner is that it is so attention consuming just to use your skills properly. In these early level dungeons and trials its not so bad because you don't get punished for looking at your hotbar, but when I go to try extreme and later raids/savage I feel it will be next to impossible for me to keep up with everything while doing mechanics.

[Jikillia]

Got to 80 and played for a bit I would like to add in my thought

1. Pets

I actually like the change more than dislike it. Now we are able to change pets in mid-battle and are encouraged with Garuda AOE and Ifrit single target. I find this far more interactive than summon and forget. While changing pets was a thing even before, it was a matter of squeezing out the most out of our dps and mostly was not something people would do a lot. (The question of whether we should or not is irrelevant) However, EA seems a bit too blend. Garuda has a bit more reason to have 2 different actions (flat AOE dmg + AOE dmg with aoe DOT groud) but ifrit could use minor adjustment like applying DoT on a single target rather then simple aoe or single. They made distinction between two pets and adjusting skills according to that makes more sense in my opinion.

Titan-egi is a bit of a different issue altogether. I can see the direction that devs took with our nugget and I like the direction, but the execution is questionable. During any encounter, we would spend them as soon as we can I would imagine (at least I have been doing that) and that means my EA1 stack is burnt pretty quickly. That means I see a dangerous dmg coming my way and I summon Titan-egi only to realize that my EA1 is on CD and I've lost my dmg and ate the damage that I was trying to protect myself from. Plus Earth shield not giving us ruin 4 stack is another huge problem. Ruin 4 stack and it's management became quite important in my opinion in optimizing our damage and spending our EA1 but not getting our stack simply makes titan-egi that much less appealing to even summon in the first place. The only time I summoned Titan-egi and successfully used shield was against Titania's big attack and I somehow had 1 EA1 available.
On that, I believe Titan-egi should have a passive effect along the line of smn suffering less dmg as long as Titan is out (or something else that is defensive) so our EA stack(?) is not used for our defense. EA1 on Titan-egi can be another attacking skill.

The real issue with our egi change is that we are completely devoid of any control capacity. Before, pets were different entities with their own controlling ability (Garuda's knockback - everyone's favourite - and stun on ifrit and titan). I believe it was mentioned before and I see this as a problem. BLM has sleep (AOE at that) and RDM can heal for a descent amount instead of control. While it does not go beyond niche mechanic in smn's kit, I think we stand to gain more to have a minor control ability and Titan-egi seems a perfect candidate for that. i.e. - EA1 single target stun/interrupt, EA2 aoe slow, enkindle aoe dmg + puddle with DoT and heavy

[Jikillia]

Continuing


2. oGCD

I can agree that its a too much. We have 4 from EA, 1 from ED/S, 2 from painflare/fester, Tri-D, dreadwyrm trance, demi-bahamut & ark morn, phoenix & revelation, 3 egi summons, 1 devotion and 1 egi's enkindle. While firebird trance and dreadwyrm trance reduces our spellcasting time to 0 across the board (except rez) it quickly overwhelms as the fight escalates. Not to mention every caster dps or healer are pretty flashy with out smn at the top with our giant demi summons, you are under much bigger pressure in and out. The fact that our oGCD management is crucial part in our dps makes this problem even bigger.

I've seen a lot of people questioning the necessity to have ED/ES and I agree as well. Making fester and painflare 15sec CD (which I believe it was suggested on the forum, can't remember exactly where) would lift up a lot of pressure off our shoulder. Also EA doesn't need to be our oGCD I feel. While pet is faaaaar more responsive (and yes they are so much more responsive), rather than have them act off our oGCD make those skills to operate independent to our actions would again life off the pressure. Phoenix feels slight less responsive than bahamut but it didn't feel too much of a problem. Not sure that was just me though.

A lot of people also said that egis forget the actions that we commanded them to do, but I never felt that. Times when pet's action was ignored happen and I've only seen them happen when mobs die after I give the command but die before egi executes it. So if fix is to happen than either make our skill not go on CD or like I suggested, make them independent to our actions therefore it goes on CD not on our action but egi's action.

[Nemekh]

Gotta cast that Ruin II when tank chain pulls 9 mobs, it's sure as hell going to make a lot of difference (actually no, you are being inefficient and losing out on a lot of DPS). An outburst with the ruination effect hitting say 5 mobs accounts for 450 potency. You don't want to waste an entire GCD that could be doing 450 potency for one that will do 180 potency just so that you can weave your painflares or EAs. But whatever, you can keep casting your Ruin IIs against 5+ mobs.

You missed the point about being efficient with doubles with meaningful ogcds. But I'm not surprised gcd efficiency is such a lost concept.

[Roda]

I think what scares me the most with summoner is that it is so attention consuming just to use your skills properly. In these early level dungeons and trials its not so bad because you don't get punished for looking at your hotbar, but when I go to try extreme and later raids/savage I feel it will be next to impossible for me to keep up with everything while doing mechanics.

This is what is really worrying me. I don't know how I'm going to keep track of 10~14 different counters, telegraphs/environmental hazards, the boss's cast bar, my positioning, my mana levels (since we don't get mp on aetherflow) and calling for my raid all at the same time. I'm desperately trying to find some way of ripping my eyes away from the seemingly required full-time vigil on my hotbars so I can actually enjoy these cool fights. >.<
(SE, please.. Sound effects for when AE1&2 are up)

Also has anyone else notice ifrit-egi doesn't give a single solitary H*ck if anything gets hit by AE2? I've been focusing on a target, another target dies, ifrit decides it's a great idea to come back to me, stop, and then use flaming crush.

[Miskatonic]

I must say I agree with how crazy the job feels. Especially coming from playing RDM throughout Stormblood, the amount of pressure there is for OGCD and how bad it feels compared to the smoothness of RDM has been very tricky to adjust to. I've been mostly playing by ear and really have no idea if I'm even doing it right.

The other issue is that the lack of pet tanking made the lvl 60-70 SMN job quests extremely difficult. It required chocobo companion, titan shields, and potions to complete and I still died a couple times. I'm not sure if they retuned these quests to compensate for the lack of a meatshield Titan.

Overall, I'm tempted to go back to RDM but I told myself I'd get to 80 on SMN and main it this expansion and I'm sticking to my guns for now.

[Kyohei]

I must say I agree with how crazy the job feels. Especially coming from playing RDM throughout Stormblood, the amount of pressure there is for OGCD and how bad it feels compared to the smoothness of RDM has been very tricky to adjust to. I've been mostly playing by ear and really have no idea if I'm even doing it right.

The other issue is that the lack of pet tanking made the lvl 60-70 SMN job quests extremely difficult. It required chocobo companion, titan shields, and potions to complete and I still died a couple times. I'm not sure if they retuned these quests to compensate for the lack of a meatshield Titan.

Overall, I'm tempted to go back to RDM but I told myself I'd get to 80 on SMN and main it this expansion and I'm sticking to my guns for now.

If you see it as as three layer rotation you'll see just how awesome the job is by making you do more different things compared to other mages (not saying others are bad though, they're also good, but have a different playstyle). SMN whole rotation includes 3 sub rotations: one with dreadwyrm, one with bahamut and one with phoenix and only then it repeats, while other jobs consists of one bigger rotation that repeat itself. Once you notice the layers it's easier to smoothen the whole rotation .
I get it might be overwhelming at first but when you get used to it it's actually very nice to have because there no feeling of being bored to do the same thing. That's only my opinion however, i got bored by all other jobs, except NIN.

Oh, and i remember that lvl 70 quest and i died too twice before clearing it during SB, titan didn't keep aggro so i didn't use him anymore after the second try and went full dps with ifrit. Potions did help though, that's true.

What really annoying now for me is that the pet is literally non-existent in HUD layout. Meaning there's no feedback on what it's doing. You can't track garuda's dot except by looking at the tornado itself or putting her in focal.

[Trensharo]

If you see it as as three layer rotation you'll see just how awesome the job is by making you do more different things compared to other mages (not saying others are bad though, they're also good, but have a different playstyle). SMN whole rotation includes 3 sub rotations: one with dreadwyrm, one with bahamut and one with phoenix and only then it repeats, while other jobs consists of one bigger rotation that repeat itself. Once you notice the layers it's easier to smoothen the whole rotation .
I get it might be overwhelming at first but when you get used to it it's actually very nice to have because there no feeling of being bored to do the same thing. That's only my opinion however, i got bored by all other jobs, except NIN.

Oh, and i remember that lvl 70 quest and i died too twice before clearing it during SB, titan didn't keep aggro so i didn't use him anymore after the second try and went full dps with ifrit. Potions did help though, that's true.

What really annoying now for me is that the pet is literally non-existent in HUD layout. Meaning there's no feedback on what it's doing. You can't track garuda's dot except by looking at the tornado itself or putting her in focal.

That's a pretty weak argument. RDM has a rotation with two layers as well: Melee and Ranged. It flows well, is actually intuitive, and is far more approachable. That's the difference between good class design and a badly-executed salvage job. That's not surprising, though, for obvious reasons.

You're doing 4x as much work for mediocre results. The DPS disparity between Summoner and Red Mage is small enough that it simply isn't worth dealing with Summoner unless you have some sort of RP attachment to the class. It feels absolutely awful to play, and RDM brings decent utility and more available raises (due to easily accessible instant casts).

The same way [s]he can see how "awesome" it is by putting on his/her blinders and deluding him/herself with your cop-out, you can see how "awful" it is by realizing how mediocre it is to do that much more work for disproportionately meager gains.

I'll agree that some people may like the "multi-tasking," if we can even call it that... but let's not kid ourselves here.

At the end of the day, it isn't even about DPS... it's about fun. It isn't fun to play this class outside of questing in the overland zones... This class doesn't even allow one to enjoy the game while playing it.

The way this class is set up isn't even logical, FFS.

[Taranok]

And remember Trensharo, there are vastly, vastly better designed multitasking classes. RDM for casters, and Bard/Machinist/Dancer. As bad as Machinist is post-rework for people on high ping, as bad as it is to maintain drill anchor shot, the class actually does flow, unlike Summoner.

Even by multitasking design, Summoner is badly designed.

[Vallhallix]

I loved Summoner in Stormblood and love it even more now! The fast pace feels soooo good. Definitely will be my main caster for this expansion.

Same, SMN has always felt awkward especially in low lvl when it came to dealing with trash, with the changes of bane, the way aetherflow work etc no longer is low lvl annoying with SMN, and no longer are you super concerned about dealing with the trash in high lvl, or worried about the next big pull because a tank made you waste a bane LOL, love it. Having more fun with it than I did in Stormblood. I also know where everything is, and when it's active. I don't need to look at the hotbar at all to be able to move around freely. I've been used to multitasking this class since ARR. Might be harder for people on keyboard i can see that. It is an ABSOLUTE breeze for me however with the DS4. No issues here.