Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[CecMiller]

EDIT 21/08/19:

A link to a more up to date post savage and after listening to the live letter from Yoshida about patch 5.08/5.1 potential changes: SMN Feedback after Savage Launch/Live Letter for 5.08/5.1

Hey there,

I made some preliminary comments on Summoner before release as seen in this thread: (Warning long read)

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/392119-My-Thoughts-on-the-5.0-Media-Tour-Build-of-SMN

Now that I'm level 80 and have done a few EX fights with SMN, I feel like I need to highlight the issues I'm experiencing with Summoner. There are in no particular order of importance (except probably the first and second)

1) Energy Drain/Energy Siphon requires a target and is incredibly frustrating when there is any forced downtime.

This is a big one for me personally. I do not enjoy watching a pack of mobs die only for me to have 1s remaining on Energy Drain and that feeling is genuinely awful. Every fight a boss jumps away for an intermission feels awful. This is especially painful as we used to NOT suffer from this issue in 4.1 and the decision was made in 5.0 to change it to this. To add insult to injury, several jobs were made to have improved downtime performance, where as summoner was robbed of one of their tools which made downtimes feel good. I think this change is one of the worst changes and I would hope something is done to remedy it.

My personal suggestion is quoted at the bottom. Have Aetherflow be in control of our cycle again and have the same 60s cooldown. It would fix a LOT of the issues I'm about to talk about.

Just a Note: I am aware summoners asked for not having to wait 60s for aetherflow before fights, but I dont think the expectation ever was for Summoners to suddenly start at 0 stacks instead of 3 and for its new implementation to be as frustrating as it is. If there was a choice between one or the other, I'd gladly wait 60s and make my raid teams wait too. They already wait due to other pre-pull necessities regardless.


2) The removal of flexibility regarding trance timings and the current Aetherflow detachment from the cycle creates some frustrating gameplay experiences.

Previously, you could spend all 3 Aetherflow stacks and delay DWT as long as Aetherflow was still on cooldown and this would not result in a delay in your cycle.
Meaning: if you had 50s left on Aetheflow to comeback, you had the entire 50s duration to choose of when you wanted to enter DWT when it was more appropriate for you even if you were forced into cutting it short due to how long you held it.

This offered more player choice in how you wanted to use it: whether you wanted to rush DWT or hold it for a more movement heavy section or for upcoming ogcd weaves or wait until you got to a group of monsters to deathflare them down. I found this playstyle very rewarding and extremely fun as you would benefit greatly through smart play.

In 5.0, Aetherflow is detached from the cycle entirely and DWT/FBT is now extremely rigid at a hard 60s cooldown. The cost of flexibility is that it will delay your cycle which is ultimately a bad thing to do as the payoff from phoenix is too large to ignore. As a result, you will simply be using the abilities on cooldown for most cases. This removes all the strategic element of when to optimally use these trances which I felt was one of the most iconic portions of the summoners tool kit. The ability to hold your abilities and strategically use them when you wanted in a given time frame.

This change, in general, feels awful and is incredibly frustrating similar to Aetherflow when there is forced downtimes, whether its between add packs in a dungeon, or bosses phasing out. Previously you had a lot more lee way and if you knew a boss was going to disappear soon, you could "rush" a portion of your rotation so that you wouldn't be delaying the cycle anywhere near as much as you do now. Similarly, for add packs, you could spend all your aetheflow stacks and "hold" DWT for the next add pack so you could use AOE inside DWT which rewarded you. Now, any attempt to do so will simply delay your cycle and cause you to have wasted time that could have contributed to getting you to your phoenix burst phase just that much faster.

3) As a follow up to the changes to the trances, we are now forced to drop dots for a few ticks at some points due to the rigid 60s cooldown.

As previously we could enter DWT/FBT of our own accord (as long as we had spent Aetherflow stacks), we could make use of the tri-disaster resets to keep close to maximum uptime on our dots. With the current changes, it is inevitable that we now will have an occurence of lost dot ticks and so have the occassional unbuffed ruin. This is pretty annoying to deal with and consider the effect this has when there exists a debuff limit for fates, hunts and Eureka like content. SMN is unnecessarily gimped by the design.

4) Summoner is now much higher in the APM department than before.

With the removal of 2 60s OGCDs (Rouse and Shadowflare), we gained 4x 30s OGCDs from pets and 1 extra OGCD user per minute for Aetherflow/Energy drain than previously. As a result, the class now feels more busy than ever before.

This is hit or miss really. I could enjoy this higher APM playstyle, but currently, I find myself watching my bars more than I am watching the boss or whats going on around me. It could be just teething issues and the learning curve, but I don't believe I ever looked at my bars as much as I do now. Furthermore, the egi actions themselves are a tool to gain ruin 4 stacks than their resultant potency which is a bit sad. I would also note that in 4.0 we could use these egi assaults in obey mode whilst hardcasting ruin 3. This made them "nicer" to use as we werent forced to ruin 2 in order to use them. Personally, I could deal with the higher APM of egi actions if other issues were fixed, but they're not so I'm not a fan at this current time.

5) Ghosting of pet actions.

If a target dies whilst a pet is perfoming an egi assault action, the ability will "wiff" and you will not gain a ruin 4 stack. This is very annoying to deal with and I hope this gets fixed. Consider giving us the Ruin 4 immediately on button press than waiting for the action to execute and hit a target.

6) Bahamut feels awkward to use.

He has been robbed of his most interesting interaction during his summon. I understand that phoenix is a new summon and supposed to be the new "big payoff" at the end of the summon cycle, but does bahamut have to feel so bad? You stand around hard casting Ruin 3's as he no longer benefits from ogcds. If you move, he lumbers behind you. He looks like he is doing nothing for half the time he is with you. Why not give him his ogcd interaction back to differentiate him from Phoenix? In general, Bahamut feels feeble in comparison. I hope that at some point, bahamut gets more moves than akhmorn or pelvic thrusting the air at his enemies.

To add onto this, it seems his AI has been changed slightly. When before, you could summon him late into the ogcd and Ruin 2 -> Akhmorn and generate a wyrmwave before the akhmor, he now ignores this or cancels the wyrmwave and just akhmorns instead.

As a suggestion, maybe make his wyrmwaves AOE? Flarebreaths for example from UCOB with the same visual element. He just feels a lot worse when compared to phoenix.

7) Energy Siphon? Just... What?

I would argue this is one of the worst buttons in this game to be created. It is the worst form of creating an opportunity where a good player could excel over an average player. The ability to recognize that the using Energy Siphon when 3 or more targets are in close proximity to each other vs. using Energy Drain on 1 target. This is a sad excuse of a button gated behind a shared 30s cooldown. It is not even remotely interesting and offers nothing but additional AOE potency in the case of adds for generating Aetherflow.

If Energy Drain read:
"Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100 to the target and 40 to all enemies nearby it"

Energy Siphon would have no reason to exist. Somehow, it was decided that cutting that piece of text off from Energy Drain and making its own button made for an interesting ability. It will be one of the first abilities to be pruned I feel.

Instead, you could use this button as an opportunity to give SMN players the ability to generate Aetherflow during forced downtime aka it lets you generate Aetherflow without a target. Otherwise, this ability is honestly mindboggling

8) Everlasting Flight exists.

This has to be a purely flavour move, but I cant help but question why it even exists. No summoner worth their salt will ever delay phoenix to aoe heal their party. I hope that this move is changed into something more appropriate one day - or at least, its not counted as part of SMN's "utility". Whats funny is that it was made MORE potent from the media tour build. I personally dont believe Summoner should have access to any healing skills. The shield from our titan egi more than suffices. Red mage has mastery over magic, give vermedica to them if they want it. I dont believe summoners asked for this.

9) Slipstream on garuda.

While the animation is neat, damaging ground aoes have always been frustating. Whats more is that we cant even see the duration of the ability. Tanks in dungeons dont stand still and so usually mobs move out. A nice change would be that any enemies hit by the slipstream gain a dot immediately that deals 20 potency over 15s. This makes it more reliable.

10) The class arguable got more complex/harder.

With the addition of Ruin 4 stacks, and a larger potency loss of Ruin 2 vs. Ruin 3, you are incentivized to hardcast more and efficiently use ruin 4 stacks in trade of ruin 2s. Dots are far more important than they ever have been due to their 80-140 potency gain on your Ruin spells. This is a non-issue for me largely, but I felt the need to point it out.

That said, its my personal belief that complexity/difficulty should have some reward in terms of dps. If two jobs dealt the same or near the same dps, but the other was much easier to get into/play, the easier one would more attractive. If you opted for the harder/complex class, you would feel as if you were putting in a lot of work in to generate the same output.

11?) Let us have some control over our aggro.

Please return the "reduces emnity by half" text onto lucid dreaming or something. It is not enjoyable as a dps player to immediately die after the tanks do especially when you have a raise. It seems now that the aggro bar is a better indicator of dps than before, and as a result, the standout dps players usually get pummeled to the ground before the other dps which is something that I do not enjoy happening. Tanks do generate a lot of aggro now for sure, but the moment they die, the next highest on aggro (usually one of the better performing dps) is next on the boss's hit list. At least before I could make use of my aggro tools so that I could manipulate the other dps into dying first so I have time to rez healers or kill the boss if needed.

To conclude:

The ones that irk me the most are 1) and 2). We went from having this unique kit where we could freely strategically choose when to use trances and aetherflow charges, to now being more rushed into the decisions we make and further, removing all sense of strategicness to DWT/FBT use. This developed as we lost Aetherflow, whose stacks we could hold, as the cog in the rotation and traded it for DWT/FBT, which is used instantly in comparison. As a result, a lot of downtime now feels awful which is a complete 180 from 4.1+ SMN as it was one of our strengths. This is compounded by the fact that Energy Drain can not be used without a target and so we can not gain stacks during downtime.

Edit:

Something that could fix problems 1), 2), 3) and arguably 7) whilst iterating on the 4.1 design of SMN which gave us all this flexibility

Alternatively (assuming Aetherflow is back to its original state/60s), simply pressing the button could make the Trances "Active" instead of having to spend the stacks to activate DWT etc


Example:

1. Aetherflow (on use aka just to gain the stacks) gives us access to DWT aka button lights up and can be used whenever.(Can spend stacks inside).
Further, the next Aetherflow becomes "Enhanced" after DWT ends for its next use. This means we can use DWT however we want for the next 60s.
2. DWT gives us access to Bahamut as before.
3. Enhanced Aetherflow (on use aka just to gain the stacks) gives us access to FBT aka button lights up and can be used whenever. (You can spend stacks inside FBT).
Note: Enhanced AF cannot be used until you have used DWT as state prior. This avoids conflicting situations.
4. Aetherflow returns to normal for next use aka it would grant DWT again on refresh after FBT has ended.

We can be funny and call normal "Aetherflow" Energy Drain and "Enhanced Aetherflow" Energy Siphon. In effect, ending DWT upgrades Energy Drain to Energy Siphon whilst FBT ending changes Energy Siphon to Energy Drain. Also, I'd hope we can use both Energy Drain/Energy Siphon without a target in combat and preferablly between trash pulls in a dungeon if at all possible.

This avoids the aetherflow lockout in trances as was the case in 4.0+. You could also use the "enhanced" Aetherflow stacks inside bahamut as all it does is change DWT icon to FBT icon on use. Just be aware that the enkindles share times between the summons. I see no downside to this.

2nd Edit:

12) Its AOE capability has been severely hampered due to 1) and 2) and the large damage reductions on multiple targets. It has gone from being tied-best at AOE with BLM to almost rock bottom

This is due to the repeated nerfs to all of SMN AOE's capabilities with large % damage reductions which aren't as steep on other jobs (see Foul) or don't exist at all (see Nastrond). Akhmorn, Deathflare, Painflare, Dots, Bane (on 1-7 mobs) have all been nerfed. Further the effects of points 1) and 2) has drastically reduced the amount of demi summons, deathflares and painflares output over the course of a dungeon run. In addition, as tri-disaster is no longer available on demand via rushing trances, we require more setup in the form of hard casting dots to get our AOE up and running via bane. Further more, I just want to point out the level of preperation a SMN has to do for good AOE to rival other jobs as I did in this post:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post5060718

13) The Devotion timing is a bit awkward as it comes up during our phoenix trance.

This restricts the timing of the buff and causes us to delay our spell usage as this spell is not usable during Bahamut or FBT. This means it is unusable for 40 seconds of our 120 second cycle as we have no pet available. Consider making this an actual spell the summoner casts instead?

[remiff]

I am a little lost also in the global rotation of the Summoner,

I also look at my actions more often than the boss, and often when there are too many things to do,
I can not adapt my rotation properly, the summoner is fun but egi assault need to be fixed,
I wish that energy drain become 100 potency single target and 40 potency in aoe,
and energy siphon'does not inflict damage but can be used without target in combat .

I wish that EGI ASSAULT can be managed by the pet auto,

and that started the fight with 4 ruin IV already stack,
and that have gained one every 15 sec lvl 74
and 30 sec lvl 62 ,
and that they do not appear on egi assault .

[Corosar]

8) Everlasting Flight exists.

This has to be a purely flavour move, but I cant help but question why it even exists. No summoner worth their salt will ever delay phoenix to aoe heal their party. I hope that this move is changed into something more appropriate one day - or at least, its not counted as part of SMN's "utility". Whats funny is that it was made MORE potent from the media tour build. I personally dont believe Summoner should have access to any healing skills. The shield from our titan egi more than suffices. Red mage has mastery over magic, give vermedica to them if they want it. I dont believe summoners asked for this.

Funny you mention that. Because i actually wanted more ability to heal from summoner. I tend to main summoner and when red mage came out. I grew a bit angry with the fact they were far better at healing. but i also understood why. As you said. Red mage is a master of White and Black magics. It makes sense for them to have healing. When i heard of Everlasting flight coming i was estatic. I was the crazy nutjob summoner that went to Eureka day 1 just to get myself those tasty 5 materia slot gear that i could throw Mind 6's into. The fact that no longer works to make physick useful is probably the biggest thing with Shadowbringers that has become a disappointment to me. However i still have hope for the future of Arcanist's Physick. I am hoping that they make that particular one scale on INT. seeing as it has been split off from Scholar's variant. But i am the strange one that remembers cross class abilities and misses having Esuna on my summoner as well.

Yes i love the logos system and wish it was implemented in the main game in some form... Ahh... i guess my hopes will never come to pass. I always loved being able to customize my style to be more than just Damage all the time.

I will admit.. its taking me alot longer than i care to admit to get use to the new aetherflow mechanics.. Many a times have i caught myself entering a dungeon and hitting control+1 (my aetherflow key combo) only to find it fails outright

[remiff]

am rather in the opinion of Cecilia,

the heal is not useful to the summoner it is purely cosmetic,

and anyway can not place it when we want so its usefulness is random.

[Zyneste]

Red mage has mastery over magic, give vermedica to them if they want it. I dont believe summoners asked for this.

DON'T YOU DARE. NOT ANOTHER HEAL ON THE GCD PLEASE. I BEG YOU. [Please no ;-; Don't awaken the VerMedica RDMs PLS. All I really want is an OGCD heal/mitigation skill on a single target on a lowish cd to fill the void left by erase's potential and APoc. VerCure. VerRaise. OGCD. THATS ALL WE NEED. ;-; We don't need another GCD spell ;-; RDM also needs to stay away from any party wide healing spells. We aren't healers an we can't have that true healer aspect of a GCD AOE heal. ]

The 600-700 potency heal from Phoenix (if it isn't affected by pet potency) is just salt in the wound from how good the flavor is. I get that its more of a "sustain" or a glorified heal the tank a little heal rather than an emergency heal, so that makes it bearable as a RDM main, questioning my RDM identity.

[Corosar]

am rather in the opinion of Cecilia,

the heal is not useful to the summoner it is purely cosmetic,

and anyway can not place it when we want so its usefulness is random.

I think we play with very different styles. I never was much for being the main DPS of a party. but more be there should everything just go arse up. Make sure the healer can focus on the tank by ressing people as needed. I would absolutely love more healing if it was optional. I understand some summoners are not gonna want it but light healing on DPS in my eyes is not a problem to me. I saved a many raids back in stormblood because of my overdoing it for mind melding on my gear and our healer lost connection for a period of time. Being able to hold the tank up just long enough for the healer to reconnect has always been something i have been proud of.

[remiff]

I think we play with very different styles. I never was much for being the main DPS of a party. but more be there should everything just go arse up. Make sure the healer can focus on the tank by ressing people as needed. I would absolutely love more healing if it was optional. I understand some summoners are not gonna want it but light healing on DPS in my eyes is not a problem to me. I saved a many raids back in stormblood because of my overdoing it for mind melding on my gear and our healer lost connection for a period of time. Being able to hold the tank up just long enough for the healer to reconnect has always been something i have been proud of.

I understand you, but in this case the red mage is more suited to the situation than the summoner, even if it must be because you like the gameplay of the smn.

sorry if my english is not perfect, it's not my native language .

[Corosar]

I understand you, but in this case the red mage is more suited to the situation than the summoner, even if it must be because you like the gameplay of the smn.

sorry if my english is not perfect, it's not my native language .

Your english is not bad at all in my opinion. But yea i do wish that the abilities were just a bit more useful on summoner. Allow for people to form their own little quirks of playstyle. Redmage is definitely better for being the red healer. i just kinda wish that more classes that currently have the ability to heal somewhere on their spells have it be useful at least in some niche. I like the asthetics of Summoner far more than red. and i personally would be glad to have the option to use physick as a failsafe for when the healer is otherwise out of action. There is a large amount of times where a RDM has not done anything but DPS a boss when the healers were on a raising cycle. and i was happy to be able to assist them to get us back into the fight just that much quicker.

[CecMiller]

I personally will never understand the obscesion the forums have with physick on summoner.

I understand people want some tools for solo play survivability, or help out in a pinch. What we have to understand is that we are not healers, and RDM is unique in respect to white magic. The only reason we have physick is due to our link to arcanist and our brother job, Scholar. SE has made an effort to further split the class and they are 90% of the way there. I personally dont understand why they introduced the abilities like everlasting flight as the response from the forums would almost certainly be asking for an int scaling physick.

So why don't I like it?

The obvious first off - we are a DPS class. The less obvious fact would be that our dps would end up being brought even lower for the additional utility we have. This is the kind of price I would not be willing to pay. We are a dps class first and foremost and losing dps power for added utility in the form of a targetable heal, to me, is unacceptable due to its mostly niche uses (It would be really strong in POTD/HoH Solo). Blackmage has made do with a defensive barrier. Its in flavour for us to have a shield of our own as we are linked to scholar. Titan egi with a defensive earthern element providing said shield also feels more flavourful to summoner. Further still, we'd be stepping on Red Mage's toes. They have mastery over white magic where as summoner has no such thing. I dont believe summoner should have access to any healing magic of any form. I'd prefer us to be more like BLM in the defensive utility department.

I can see how having a healing spell would be appealing, but the cost of having one is not something I want to deal with. It would be better for me if the heal was to not exist and get deleted like sustain did so these conversations would never occur.

With regards to Everlasting Flight - Why not make it a damage buff instead akin to DWT's old 10% magic buff? Have it buff your damage during Phoenix by 10%. This is more in flavour with Phoenix's Blessing from UCOB which provides a large damage % increase buff. It would be FAR more useful as we'd be buffing all of our phoenix moves. A heal that is locked behind our biggest burst move has a number of problems:

Heals and/or mitigation is a planned affair with regards to mechanics or optimally, they should be.

The problem here is that, you simply press phoenix on cooldown to maintain your dps. Holding it will end up creating further frustration down the line and be a DPS loss in the grand scheme of things as you are delaying your cycle. So, it is instead pressed on cooldown to make sure you do not drift from your summoner cycle. This results in a heal that generates you aggro(?) and most likely is simply overheal as it would have to have come up when a raid wide AOE had occured. Even then, the resultant heal is not large at all. It also has this really weird 20s duration where you could get an odd 7 tick now and then vs. 6 ticks as most regens have a duration that is a multiple of 3.

Better to have it provide you a damage boost which will ALWAYS be useful vs. something that, very rarely, MIGHT be useful.

[Gallus]

I agree with everything except point 11. Let me have control over my aggro so that when my tank dies I can reduce my enmity and let another DPS take the hit xD.
There are no aggro problems right now, a tank can sneeze at a boss and go take a nap and you won't steal the aggro even if they afk for the next 30 minutes. Tank shouldn't die in the first place.