Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[Taranok]

DNC's heal doesn't disrupt their DPS rotation, so even if it's not turbo strong a lot of players still use it (myself included). If Phoenix heal is/was designed the same way it would be a similar case, IMO. Abilities like that do have a niche in content where everyone doesn't perform 100% up to par, I think. Well, some won't like that I suppose, but I think it's a fair bit more interesting than just, "oh look, another raid DPS buff again". Maybe it would be more practical if it were a healing up buff like Nature's Minne on BRD, idk.

I don't recall ever saying you should disrupt your DPS rotation for the phoenix heal.

Wellllllll..... if summon phoenix was separate to FBT like dreadwyrm trance is, or we still used the old aetherflow > trance > demi system where only aetherflow had a set timing, we might have been able to use it that way, as we'd have more freedom as to where we wanted to summon phoenix.

Please no, Demi-Bahamut already feels awkward summoning it separately, even though the opening rotation would go completely to hell if DB worked that way.

So I'm wondering it two changes would help with the flow of combat.

*snip*

As for Everlasting Flight, congrats to everyone complaining about physick. You now have a potent heal for solo'ing.

1 won't fix the issue because you'd still have serious problems dumping the stacks. You've only reduced oGCD bloat by 1 oGCD per minute so you've not actually addressed the problem of bloat or watching bars because you still have to spend everything on a 5s timer. It's not a good change.

2: Lowering the Trance timer would kinda work, but in reality you're making the rotation busier while not addressing the problem of oGCD bloat, in other words the situation is being made worse. If Trances were to be sped up, 5 seconds is all it needs. Plus, if you used a 45 second trance timer, you're literally going to DWT for 15 seconds, DB for 20 seconds, and then have a mere 10 seconds of downtime to spam out EAs before DP comes up for 20 seconds and you have another 25 seconds of downtime before DWT. It's too compressed.

3: 90s enkindle timer would horrifically break the rotation just like Devotion being a 3m timer causes issues. You're guaranteeing it will come up during Phoenix and possibly during DWT very easily, whereas the current timer of enkindle places it squarely during DWT, always, provided DWT always is used as it comes off cooldown.

The easiest way to fix (most) of SMN's problems is to straight up delete energy drain/energy siphon and shift the damage into EA, and then probably drop Devotion's timer down to 2m from 3 and rebalance as necessary. That alone would massively drop out the skill floor and make SMN more approachable.

[CecMiller]

So I'm wondering it two changes would help with the flow of combat.

1) Make Energy Drain 60s recast time but give you all 4 Aetherflow at once. You would still have the same resources but wouldn't have to keep such a close eye on it.

2) Would decreasing the recast timer of Trance to 45s fix this downtime issues? Alternatively you could separate Demi-Phoenix from FBT but that would also mean you separate FBT fire spells from DPhoenix as well. Is that okay?

3) Lower Enkindle to 90s would place it right after Demi-Phoenix phase.

As for Everlasting Flight, congrats to everyone complaining about physick. You now have a potent heal for solo'ing.

I personally would really like #1 and its something I thought about, but if they do this, they might as well remove the lock on DWT outside of combat and what not and tie it back into the cycle. This would result in a far more flexible DWT and even FBT. Use 4 stacks and then decide when to enter DWT instead of waiting 45+ seconds to enter DWT and FBT. If they do this however, I'd still like a way to generate AF without a target. Its immensely annoying to have a target die JUST as AF is about to be up. Our AF stacks feel like just a worse version of polygot in how we obtain them. At least BLM can maintain polygot via Transpose no matter if anything is targetable or not. I don't think I want polygot, but just a way to maintain AF even when we have no target really.

2) Reducing Trance CD would also speed up our rotation to 1 min 30s. It would boost our DPS as we got to our big payload sooner and I certainly would not mind it. That said, I dont think it would fix the downtime problems. The problem with giving Trance's their own cooldown and not basing it off AF is that we could previously hold AF and thus DWT/FBT through intermission/downtime. Hard cooldowns means we're gated somewhat. With it depending on AF, we had a bit more agency on when we decided to use the trances whether for movement or burst.

Example:

Currently: Boss is going away in 5s and you have the current version of FBT up. The intermission ended up lasting 20-30s. You ended up delaying your cycle by 25-35s as you had to wait to use FBT.

When it was behind AF: Boss is going away in 5s gives us 3 Choices:

1) Before reaching the intermission stage, you could have spent your Aetherflow stacks fast and "rushed" FBT for the full duration before the intermission. This is because Aetherflow was the only barrier to FBT and not a hard 60s cooldown.

2) Spend Aetherflow stacks and keep FBT until after the boss comes back. We wouldn't delay our cycle by 25-35s as Aetherflow would still be on cooldown and ticking during this time. We could just use it after those 25-35s pass aka use FBT to re-open on the boss. After we use FBT, AF would be back in 5-10s (Its been on cooldown for 25-35s, used 20s on FBT resulting in a total of 45-55s). The power of Aetherflow here was that the countdown would begin again after you used it to gain 4 stacks and so you never delayed the cycle as long as the stacks were spent and the trance was used before Aetherflow came back up.

3) Assuming we could use the new Aetherflow inside Trances, Do as #2 but don't re-open on the boss with FBT. Instead wait for AF stacks and then use FBT and AF stacks together by making use of the instant caste OGCD weave opportunities.

As you can see, old Aetherflow made you VERY flexible with how and when you wanted to use your trances. Right now, you're at the mercy of fight design really when before we were incredibly strong regardless of fight design. A complete 180 really. This is in contrast to what happened to a lot of other jobs which were made stronger in intermission downtime (additional polygot stack potentially + umbral hearts x3 during downtime). They can spend their stacks if any before a long downtime was to occur and then generate them again over the course of the downtime.

With regards to seperating FBT and Phoenix, my concern would be that phoenix suddenly becomes as awkward as bahamut where they are both just wyrmwaves and akhmorns with a different coat of paint. I wouldn't mind it, but I like my demi summons actually doing more actions that just akhmorn/revelation. I think current bahamut is pretty awkward and wouldn't want that to be the case for Phoenix. Part of me wants the OGCD interaction back so bahamut would wyrmwave more often and doesn't look like he's afk for half the time he's out.

3) I haven't observed this just yet personally, but I will check as to when my Enkindle comes up!

[babizokahh]

I'm not a pro player by any means, but as a main smn since I've began playing, I'm quite frustrated and having imense trouble with the new rotations. The new/reformed skills feel very punitive if you delay them, so synergizing with the rest of my party is becoming a true nightmare. I feel like I've lost mobility, also bahamut feels boring now, the pet skills basically becoming smn ogcd was my worst fear and the new aetherflow doesn't allow for me to burst like I used to. Having to completely forget the rotations I used to do with my eyes closed is proving to be very difficult and I feel like I'm missing something about the new gameplay but I can't figure it out what I'm doing wrong. I'm genuinely worried about how smn will play out in raiding, which is what I focus on the game.



My thoughts and personal opinions so far, pros and cons :



1 - Aetherflow should be allowed to be cast outside combat, at the very least. If you lose the small frame between a pull or a boss phase, you are punished a lot.

2 - Bahamut feels clunkier than ever, because now he seems to do nothing for half the summon time.

3 - Phoenix skill everlasting flight is... I can't even... why? just why? they really missed the chance of something useful, giving a small damage party buff or something like that.

4 - Ruin 2 is taboo now.

5 - SMN feels like it lost a bit of mobility.

6 - Immortal pets with insta cast are great
7 - Phoenix, apart from everlasting flight, feels nice to play in general.
8 - I kind of miss having mana shift as a role action, it helped in desperate situations.
9 - Having pet skills as smn skills instead of separate skills feels worse because before I could do many things at once.

[Kinthe]

Admittedly, I dropped summoner at 74 due to a couple of these issues. Energy Drain doesn't feel great as is- it felt to me like it's too short a cooldown, and would be better giving more resources on a longer cooldown (say, 60s for 4 charges. Something along that line). Uncoupling Dreadwyrm and Aetherflow also felt surprisingly bad, like we had a bunch of totally independent systems now that didn't work together in any way, rather than something cohesive. I could've lived with those if not for the next thing though.

The Egi Assaults (and the resultant APM/button bloat).

They do a pittance of damage, as do our non-demi egis. They don't feel rewarding or good to press. Ruin 4 is nice, but "press oGCD so you can press ruin 4" is basically dark arts, but for ruins. It just feels bad, and the additional buttons coupled with the frequency we hit them left me ending a dungeon going "Huh, my hands actually hurt." An extra 4 button presses a minute- in addition to the extra 2 presses from energy drain (2 energy drains, 4 festers a minute, compared to old summoner's 1 aetherflow, 3 festers) turned out to be the limit before the class became physically painful to play. The numbers are bad, the APM increase is bad, and sadly it made me drop the class. They could've been summoners' variant of Machinist's Drill/Air Anchor, flashy moves that're on-global and hit for exciting amounts, and instead they do a pittance of damage and stress players hands for minimal reward.

I don't want to be purely negative though. Firebird Trance feels like it's working, and feels good to press (I wouldn't mind seeing Brand of Purgatory replace ruin 2 instead of ourburst admittedly... just for ease of keybinding). I'd be thrilled to go back to summoner if changes happen, but until then, I'll be playing a different class.

[CecMiller]

Admittedly, I dropped summoner at 74 due to a couple of these issues. Energy Drain doesn't feel great as is- it felt to me like it's too short a cooldown, and would be better giving more resources on a longer cooldown (say, 60s for 4 charges. Something along that line). Uncoupling Dreadwyrm and Aetherflow also felt surprisingly bad, like we had a bunch of totally independent systems now that didn't work together in any way, rather than something cohesive. I could've lived with those if not for the next thing though.

The Egi Assaults (and the resultant APM/button bloat).

They do a pittance of damage, as do our non-demi egis. They don't feel rewarding or good to press. Ruin 4 is nice, but "press oGCD so you can press ruin 4" is basically dark arts, but for ruins. It just feels bad, and the additional buttons coupled with the frequency we hit them left me ending a dungeon going "Huh, my hands actually hurt." An extra 4 button presses a minute- in addition to the extra 2 presses from energy drain (2 energy drains, 4 festers a minute, compared to old summoner's 1 aetherflow, 3 festers) turned out to be the limit before the class became physically painful to play. The numbers are bad, the APM increase is bad, and sadly it made me drop the class. They could've been summoners' variant of Machinist's Drill/Air Anchor, flashy moves that're on-global and hit for exciting amounts, and instead they do a pittance of damage and stress players hands for minimal reward.

I don't want to be purely negative though. Firebird Trance feels like it's working, and feels good to press (I wouldn't mind seeing Brand of Purgatory replace ruin 2 instead of ourburst admittedly... just for ease of keybinding). I'd be thrilled to go back to summoner if changes happen, but until then, I'll be playing a different class.

"You don't know what you have until it's gone".

I'm in full agreement with you that I'd like to have it tied back to its cycle. Decoupling Aetherflow from the cycle has had adverse affects on a myriad of elements in our rotation, besides the reduced flexibility. A prominent point that was brough up by Yoshida in interviews was that he wanted to remove the Aetherflow "Stress point" from summoner. In return, he generated even worse ones. I would LOVE to have the old 60s Aetherflow back to dictate our cycle. Currently, we stress over HAVING A TARGET for our aetherflow - its still as stressful as before and its down right horrible when a target disappears or dies JUST BEFORE you can refresh. Not to mention, the same "Stress point" still exists via the 60s cooldown on Dreadwyrm Trance/Firebird Trance. Honestly, it would be comedic if not for the fact it feels downright terrible

To Quote: https://old.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...our_interview/

Q: The job actions trailer that was released the other day left a striking impression when the Automaton was summoned to fight. SMN's Firebird also had quite an impact, but...

Yoshida: For SMN, we first decided to eliminate the stress of pet management. Egis take 1/5 the damage that a player would, but that kind of felt half-baked, like you couldn't tell whether they were getting hit or not... and then they'd get hit by a tank cleave and die. At that point, it was like... maybe we just don't need them to take damage anymore. And for the egi summoning, since you're Summoners, it should be instant (ignoring the fact that you began as Arcanist). We also gave each egi distinct features so that you'd switch between them to make use of their effects. That's how a pet job should be.

Q: Aetherflow was also separated from the Dreadwyrm Trance/Summon Bahamut cycle.

Yoshida: Regaining Aetherflow was also a stress point, and now we're focusing on the actual act of summoning. Up until now, there was a bit of downtime after summoning Bahamut, so now you can continue on with summoning Firebird, doing a large summon whenever the recast time rolls around. This mechanical change was simply a result of addressing a major cause of stress.

I think they failed to see the benefits of having it tied down to Aetherflow when compared to our current predicament. Its honestly a massive failure on their part at least from my perspective. I saw this coming as soon as the change was announced. They just changed what the stress point was and added more of them.

With regards to the Egi Assaults - I'm in agreemenet that the actions themselves are pitiful and we're more concerned about the Ruin 4 Stacks. This is a big shame to me - I was hoping for something more meaningful to come from my pets. Further, these Ruin 4 Stacks should arguably be a gauge element. Maybe have bahamuts wings subsectioned into 4 and have them glow when you gain a stack until max = 4 stacks. The extra OGCDs were always going to be hit or miss and I would say I prefer not having to looking at my bars as much, but the extra ogcds do prove popular with some players. Imagine if these egi assaults did not generate us Ruin 4 Stacks - I would be furious that they're so feeble and frivilous. Right now they are, as you say, "Ruin 4 Generators" and nothing more really. When there are a lot of mobs in close proximity, they do some good damage, but on single targets - its pretty sad. I would personally be in favour for longer cooldown pet abilities in return for the pets doing something more meaningful, but now the Ruin 4 stack generation is a new consideration.

I also agree, there are many good points regarding the new summoner:
- Pet Responsiveness is much improved (Though there are still some underlying issues)
- Pets can no longer die (Though I wish we could more easily see if our pet was summoned like someone else mentioned)
- Phoenix Feels good (RIP if you accidently press anything other than its 2 moves)
- Faster Bahamut (Obvious other issues aside)
- FREE BANE! (Why cant Bio 3 apply instantly? Is there something I'm missing? I've accidently bane'd just miasma due to Bio 3 not applying instantly)

Its not all bad, but there are definately a lot of "feels bad" segments to our current iteration. There are other things I haven't highlighted that are of concern (our dps, be it single target or AOE), but I'm going to wait until we have something more concrete to go off.

[Angry_Evil]

I understand that you people want DWT and FBT separated or even phoenix and FBT separated but it's literally unrealistic. Like... how would that be even implemented? It's like people think - just separate them ez. Nothing works like that. Where FBT will go? New button? Change from summon bahamut? I myself like the idea of DWT>Bahamut>FBT without downtime around it but with how strong phoenix is compressing rotation like that will make SMN too overpowered never mind the bloat problem... So even if SE go that way they WILL nerf a lot of potency and people will be complaining again... Same for ED changes. Make it 60s? Return aetherflow back?(this one is insane we only got ability to NOT WAIT EVER prepull and you want damn thing back? yikes) Binding aetherflow stacks back to dwt? All this ideas do is disrupting rotation for no good reason. Literally didn't see one good idea about changing smn flow that can be implemented by 5.1 or 5.2 in the whole thread.
And constant healing complaining? It's horrible. Physick is still there for one reason or another - probably their noodle code, who cares? It's not like they took SMN ability to heal away. Just let it go. Same with phoenix regen. Even if it's just flavor then what? You want 1% party wide damage buff every 2 minutes? LOL Get ready to that potency nerf.
And SAME with EA... Here tho I am kinda agree that EAs are overall bad, clunky sometimes clipping etc. Using EA and waiting for it to proc and delaying phoenix? Or use FBT and don't get r4 stack? yikes. Giving r4 on use and not hit looks like a solution but it won't change busyness problem. SE struggled with pets and SMN job for a while... What solution can you even find for it? Delete egis altogether? just leave us with demi summons? Giving SMN ifrit\garuda flavored attacks without pets doing anything?
With how bad 4.0 SMN was problems were obvious big and glaring. It doesn't feel that way with 5.0 SMN so I don't see big changes taking place like that again.

The easiest way to fix (most) of SMN's problems is to straight up delete energy drain/energy siphon and shift the damage into EA, and then probably drop Devotion's timer down to 2m from 3 and rebalance as necessary. That alone would massively drop out the skill floor and make SMN more approachable.

That's actually interesting. Not sure how I would feel about change like that in the end, but it would make pets feel less underpowered. But what you're basically doing is changing PERFECTLY working system to a clunky mess that EA is. And it's kinda not good.
Also wondering if deleting devotion and actually giving its buff(well weaker one) to phoenix will work. Using FBT before devotion applies will waste it and it sucks. And pets aren't exactly in a hurry to use it... It always was like that with them.

PS
LOL here's the idea (that won't fix ANYTHING but I want it) - give us egi themed skills with animation instead of R4, that will at least make it feel like an extension of EA and look cool too. And leave R4 for Bahamut nuking. Tho I wondering if taking away our "mobility" and giving us r4 management during bahamut was kinda the point...

[CecMiller]

*snip*

... Same for ED changes. Make it 60s? Return aetherflow back?(this one is insane we only got ability to NOT WAIT EVER prepull and you want damn thing back? yikes) Binding aetherflow stacks back to dwt? All this ideas do is disrupting rotation for no good reason. Literally didn't see one good idea about changing smn flow that can be implemented by 5.1 or 5.2 in the whole thread.
*snip*

Even if it's just flavor then what? You want 1% party wide damage buff every 2 minutes? LOL Get ready to that potency nerf.

*snip*

Quoting the ones I have my biggest issues with.

ED Changes are an obvious fix. Read the quote above from Yoshida. They failed on all counts on what their changes were intending to do. They simply changed the stress button from "Aetherflow" to Dreadywyrm Trance or Firebird Trance and they're both worse for it. And, I dont know about the others, but I still stress about using Aetherflow on cooldown. Its not like polygot where we just get charges just for maintaining Astral fire/umbral ice. Aetherflow may not be as important to the cycle, but DWT and FBT cause far more stress than Aetherflow ever did as you could hold your stacks and use them when you want. With FBT and DWT, you need to be in combat and have a target to make use of them.

The fix with regards to pre-pull is exceedingly obvious and I'm surprised you didnt catch it. Instead of giving us 0 stacks pre-pull they could have.... given us full stacks after every wipe/instance entry? A wacky idea probably to them. I definately had a shocked pikachu face when they decided to do the change they did.

If not giving us full 3 stacks then...A ninja ability like hide? Use Aetherflow -> Use Hide like ability -> Aetherflow is ready again. Wait time approximately 5s. Energy Siphon could easily have been a button that did exactly this than its current incarnation. Further still, other jobs still have pre-pull requirements with dancer around 20 or so seconds. So the problem hasn't been solved in its entirely and I dont think any of the above solutions are out of line.

The system using Aetherflow was UNDENIABLY better in every way. You never had to delay your cycle as you do now given intermissions/downtimes and it made everything amazingly flexible and fun. SMN received massive changes in 4.1 and it can do so again in 5.1/5.2 if needed.

As for the phoenix buff, I'd just want our burst phase to be more solidified (or something minor, but anything other than some random heal) so maybe the old DWT 10% magic bonus for ourselves only and the potencies on our abilities in that phase adjusted accordingly, or if we're found to be too weak, not adjusted at all. Honestly, if they just released our potency abilities a bit weaker and called the flavourful move "Phoenix blessing" and it granted you bonus magical damage % for you only, there would be no conversation to be had. The only gains would be the 2x Fester use inside FBT at 10% meaning an extra 60 potency which is hardly make or break when its every 2 minutes.

[SchrodingersWaffle]

I'm not the best SMN by any means, but I like to think I'm ok at it. Myon and Nemehk were absolutely right post-Media tour when they said that SMN was going to have some pretty severe rigidity in it's playstyle. With them trying to shift more in the direction of a Pet-focused SMN (Which I'm 10000% OK with that idea in concept, we're just having some teething/implementation issues) I feel like certain things need to be done.

1. The rigidity regarding Trances/Bahamut NEEDS to go. I prefer Nemehk's proposed solution of an ability that enables Trance with a 60s/Infinite duration on a 60s CD, but putting a charge on Trance is a quick and dirty solution that'll fix the immediate problem.

2. Ruin III and Outburst need to be instant cast. I know that's DWT's THING now, but to be honest there's so much crap going on in SMN that they just need to bite the bullet and give it to us base already.

3. Get rid of Energy Drain and Energy Siphon (Give 'em to Scholoar, I'm sure they'd love em), and just have Painflare and Fester be charged actions that have a shared pool of 4 Charges with a 15s Charge time.

4. Change the programming so that Further Ruin procs from Egi Assault I and II are given off the SMN activating the Egi Assault abilities, not the Pet casting the spell. Probably not something that's gonna happen in a hotfix but I'll take what I can get.

4a. Maybe add a queue system for pet actions? So that we're not losing charges on abilities "ghosting".

Another couple things I think they should probably consider with the direction that they're going with SMN.

A. Just get rid of DoTs on SMN all together at this point. Shift the potency from the DoTs and from the Ruin buffs over to DWT, maybe in the form of additional Deathflares.

Overall I like the general direction they're going with it, but when I feel like I have to use Ruin II over Ruin III in all situations to compensate for the sheer amount of oGCD's we have, there's problems.

[Angry_Evil]

ED Changes are an obvious fix. Read the quote above from Yoshida. They failed on all counts on what their changes were intending to do. They simply changed the stress button from "Aetherflow" to Dreadywyrm Trance or Firebird Trance and they're both worse for it.

...Yeah I just read your post and yoshida's quote... It's pretty hilarious how what yoshida said is actually good and what we got is nowhere near it and addresses mostly nothing LOL. It's amazing really.

The fix with regards to pre-pull is exceedingly obvious and I'm surprised you didnt catch it. Instead of giving us 0 stacks pre-pull they could have.... given us full stacks after every wipe/instance entry? A wacky idea probably to them. I definately had a shocked pikachu face when they decided to do the change they did.

People proposed this FOR YEARS. If it's not still implemented then there's probably some reason for not doing it. It's hard to tell. Yoshida's quote is still throwing me for a loop lol How is it always the case with them? Bad implementation of everything... As for hide like ability I dunno, I don't feel it. Giving us another skill just to manage aetherflow even more?

The system using Aetherflow was UNDENIABLY better in every way. You never had to delay your cycle as you do now given intermissions/downtimes and it made everything amazingly flexible and fun. SMN received massive changes in 4.1 and it can do so again in 5.1/5.2 if needed.

Current DWT>FBT system is more restricting it's a fact... But so far? In EX primals everything aligned pretty good. And even if we have to delay FBT or DWT cause of intermissions and such would it be THAT BIG of an issue? I honestly don't think so. Even during downtime cause of R3 boost R4s and Stacks it's not influencing damage that much. I don't see how old aetherflow system would work with addition of FBT. What do you propose here exactly? Aetherflow gives DWT then what? It'll be needed for FBT too? How will it work?
SMN received massive changes only cause it was a disaster in 4.0. Current threads are nowhere near the level of 4.0 ones.

4a. Maybe add a queue system for pet actions? So that we're not losing charges on abilities "ghosting".

I think some kind of queue system is in place. When people start talking about EA ghosting I tried hitting everything at the same time etc. And like... ifrit can wait a good several seconds and do his autoattack before he uses 2nd crimson cyclone but he does it. I dunno mb I did something wrong but I didn't see ifrit not hitting EAs on dummy with whatever I tried.

[CecMiller]

*snip*
As for hide like ability I dunno, I don't feel it. Giving us another skill just to manage aetherflow even more?

Current DWT>FBT system is more restricting it's a fact... But so far? In EX primals everything aligned pretty good. And even if we have to delay FBT or DWT cause of intermissions and such would it be THAT BIG of an issue? I honestly don't think so. Even during downtime cause of R3 boost R4s and Stacks it's not influencing damage that much. I don't see how old aetherflow system would work with addition of FBT. What do you propose here exactly? Aetherflow gives DWT then what? It'll be needed for FBT too? How will it work?
SMN received massive changes only cause it was a disaster in 4.0. Current threads are nowhere near the level of 4.0 ones.

Hide ability was just an example of them basically fixing the problem that existed with regards to pre-pull. It definately did just that. As did them just giving us full stacks. Its amazing how previously stacks could be maintained through instances (i.e. use Aetherflow before going to another area or before entering an instance) and you would be max stacks on entry AND your ability would be off cooldown so you're instantly ready to go. The only change required then? On wipe, instantly give us full stacks. That was literally the only change required. But this is all besides the point, it can be gleamed from their interview their entire "solution" is a giant failure.

Now onto DWT -> FBT and how its far more restricting:

Most obvious example: Dungeons. I don't think I need to expand on this but you will yourself pretty restricted here.

I think the best example is EX Titania. Not sure what your rotation is, but I find that I have to HOLD onto my FBT when the 3 adds appear as its off cooldown JUST as the 3rd add dies. Then she does her little intermission before summoning the big adds. Imagine now if it was based on Aetherflow - we wouldnt have the delay.

So how would Aetherflow work if it still was our cog for the cycle whilst allowing us to use it inside trances? There are a number of ways:

One way could be:
Aetherflow (spend stacks) gives us access to DWT
DWT gives us access to Bahamut
Aetherflow is now "enchanced" (spend stacks) and gives us access to FBT
FBT Resets the state of Aetherflow. (Though the "normal" aetherflow cannot be used until you have used FBT.

This is more downtime friendly as you can potentially hold enhanced Aetherflow. The downside is, to access the trances themselves you have to use the stacks and so you cant use them inside. 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.

As for 4.0 SMN, there were a lot of threads but its going to take a while before people start posting about 5.0 SMN so I went ahead and made a fast start. JP forums share similar concerns. Also, the dps statistics were out for a good while and I even made tables back then to show how poor SMN was! See here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...76#post4282276

Once we get the data, I might do something similar again.