Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[CecMiller]

It seems like they tried to make these easier since they're basically forcing everyone to use obey now, but it's clearly not easier at all. It almost makes me think that the only way to solve the pet action input delay was to make these oGCDs (or the only way they could be bothered to attempt a fix). Beyond just being a pain to have to weave these after instant casts, the dropped uses you mentioned are just as annoying as having delayed inputs before, and even then as you say, becoming a serious SMN main allowed you to deal with the old pet quirks once you understood them so I'd take that over the myriad extra oGCDs.

Yes, I personally view the changes as a downgrade. That said though, they could be upgrades if they didnt feel as busy and did something more meaningful (personal opinion). I just wish that they were even more responsive than they currently are and we can only hope it gets iterated on!

The whole philosophy of trying so many major changes to Summoner was and is completely unfounded and frankly insulting when you compare how much easier and enjoyable other classes seem to be with their QoL changes and additions.

There was zero reason to change trances from being aetherflow-charged to hard cooldowns. The progression of trance from HW to the mid-SB changes was logical, following the trend of making classes less punishing, and the final result was well designed. I will never understand the decision to change this when it was lumped in with MCH and BRD in that live letter as classes that needed major changes. It makes no sense.

I agree with you: "Don't fix what isn't broken". SMN's cycle being decided by the Aetherflow clock didn't need "fixing". The thing that needed fixing was that on Raid Wipe, stacks were instantly generated back to full and AF available to use or a button similar to hide from ninja (Use AF -> Hide (out of combat only) -> AF ready again). The latter might have been way too strong in dungeons and I would have preffered the former aka just giving us the stacks. If the goal was to reduce stress and reduce wait time, I'd argue they went and did the most convoluted changes to acheive something that seemingly should be relatively easy to do (given that you can get full stacks for charged abilities after death).

Yeah there was a trend about making the jobs less punishing and easier to play. I also feel the old SMN simply need to be iterated on vs. this "re-work". I'm not sure why they decided on massive changes either. Our JP friends over the pond have similar inclinations regarding Aetherflow (They're asking for Energy Drain/Siphon to be deleted and getting Aetherflow back in addition to it deciding our cycle again) and a lot of other stuff that matches what I've already stated (they miss the bahamut interaction/he feels weak etc).

We can only hope the devs read our feedback and do something about it! Further, due to the pet (ifrit damage almost got halved! 2.9k burning strikes to 1.5k, dot (2.2k dot ticks vs. 1.5k) and cycle changes (unflexible, can't be planned for movement phases without delaying cycle and forced delaying vs. previous rush ability), the job is really not doing too well inside ultimate in the most recent clears I've seen (usually close to bottom dps). The upgrades to ruin potencies are proving to not be enough to cover the damage that has been done due to a lot of the job changes which arguablly didnt need to happen as you've said.

This was done for several reasons, actually. One, Aetherflow being usable out of combat created situations where players wanted to stack up the mechanic before pulling else it would really mess up the opener. Two, in HW, players used the mechanic in a way flat out not intended by the devs, which was pacing Aetherflow charges to be able to spend 2 of them during DWT for +10% damage. The devs got rid of this in SB, much to the chagrin of the playerbase. The devs desynced it entirely in ShB because in ARR and HW, Aetherflow was your primary mechanic. In SB and ShB, trancing is the primary mechanic, so keeping it tied to a mechanic players don't really use anymore primarily is a strange problem.

The opener wasn't really "messy". It was created to optimally get all our abilities under raid buffs and get us to bahamut as fast as possible. The reasons given for the change as quoted by Yoshida is that it was a "Stress" mechanic and that they wanted to reduce the wait time pre-pull. I can only really say they accomplished the first task. Also, I would refrain from stating what is and what was not intended from the devs without citations - I personally have not heard this anywhere. Aetherflow inside DWT was not "make or break". The major optimization point in HW was always mana management with R3 Maximization. However, buffs and team comps caused large differences to occur, besides the skill differences between good and bad players. Keeping it tied to the cycle is very beneficial when it comes to being able to freely expend the resource and use Trances and demi summons on demand rather than when the cooldown happens to come up. You've touched on Foul Polygot stacks - It has a full 30s you can use them for before it ticks over. This is not so far different from Aetherflow and its stacks. The power in downtime that BLMs generate has been increased whilst SMNs has been effectively sundered.

Here Yoshida talks about Aetherflow:

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

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.

Its ironic then that their changes caused Aetherflow generation to become even more stressful whilst simply changing said stress point into DWT/FBT which are much worse for it due to their "you must use this immediately to gain benefit" function. This is a big reason for our drop in power.

More info can be gleamed from:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...aL704g/preview

We didn’t have time to take a look at Red Mage or Summoner, please tell us more about them

Yoshida: It difficult to describe the new Summoner just using words. All pet summons will be instant, so you can swap between your pets depending on the situation. It feels a lot more like a “Summoner”. After you used “Summon Bahamut” it felt like the rotation got too boring, so now you can summon Phoenix. You will have one of them at each time by your side to fight along with you. We removed the annoying part of stacking your “Aetherflow” pre-pull as well. Pet will execute actions on command as well now, so the confusing parts of Summoner changed and it will feel a lot more like a *true* summoner

Its undeniable that they fixed pre-pull issues for SMN, but its generated more issues when there were more elegant ways to fix said issue in raids as has been discussed earlier.