Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[CecMiller]

Yeah, we're in quite the predicament.

I always felt our AOE rotation was more involved, but ultimately more fun in 4.0. Right now, its still more involved, more the reward for executing it to maximum effect is pitiful. The current BLM AOE rotation flows very nicely with alternating with Freeze -> Filler if any 2x Flare. SMN is an entirely different beast and works very differenly to most AOE rotations from other jobs. Most other jobs usually have 1-2 combos for their AOE rotation and a bigger cooldown finisher. Summoner is a bit more complex (Dot management, Pet management, Trance and Demi-Summons, GCD usage, Aetherflow) but previously you rewarded for it when the stars aligned and you had all the tools at your disposal for maximum AOE damage.

Now however, we have sunk to a big low in our AOE dps as is demonstrated by this link:

https://imgur.com/a/URKizDW

I just wish that there was a bigger reward for the work we have to put in. Frankly, the fact that a 1-2 button combo for AOE rotation and 1 button for a finisher outperfoms us in AOE dps is a bit insulting. We have to do a lot more to maximize our AOE dps than most jobs which I cover in an earlier post:

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

With regards to other posts: At the top level you did more pet swapping than you current do. In EX primals, there are no adds within cleave range and so Garuda is pretty useless as this is the only situation garuda is made for: cleavable adds. Ifrit barely beats Garuda in a single target situation too (approximately 1.2x the power in single target). Before, when there were downtimes, you would swap to garuda for contagion, and then unleash whatever burst you have with your demi-summons and aetherflow before swapping back to ifrit at more raid dps gain (and pdps gain) than you lost via having to swap back later. That said, garuda was stronger in general after the nerfs to ifrit so instead of the pet swap opener, we were using garuda full time. Its why I'm a bit sad that contagion is gone and wasn't made more responsive and usable because it was a good reason to swap pets (provided ifrit dealt higher single target damage). I wish there were more reasons to swap pets for sure.

But yes, I wish there was a bit more reason to swap pets than there currently is. I have a lot of ideas myself but most of my posts and comments are about our current problems and fixes that I feel are the most feasible with regards to speed and ease of implementation. But the general ideas on display inside these SMN threads could all work!