Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[Taranok]

What's funny is they did exactly this for PvP SMN. It baffles me that they didn't think to do it on the PvE version.

The PVP designers are completely separate from the PVE designers, with one noteworthy exception. The PVP designers are required to listen to the PVE team and incorporate important pieces of the class into the PVP design. This is why DB and DP have been in both PVP summoners. Otherwise they make a massively simplified version of the PvE rotation balanced around both a limited set of skills and maximum class theme. This is also why the current PVP SMN has Aetherflow, Trance based on spending Aetherflow stacks, and still has DoTs that seriously feel terrible to use and WHY ARE THEY THERE PVP DEVS?! But they got rid of the egis, which weren't there in SB either, and as such don't have egi assault.

All of these factors combine to massively streamline classes, and this is why a 3-step combo is on 1 button in PVP instead of on 3 separate buttons like it is in PVE.

It just so happens that a lot of really good design choices are made by the PVP team in their "simplification" of the jobs that would have made a lot of sense if the PVE teams did it as well.

This isn't the first time I heard this and understand the why. Just like AF in 3.0 and 4.0, DWT needs to be constantly rolling with minimum stops. Once it's up and need to be used again and more importantly when the boss transitions (Eden Prime Move) that ability needs to rolling.

I disagree, but mostly because this type of forced desync is something every job deals with to some degree. Cooldowns being forcibly held by boss mechanics isn't something new, and it just means you come in swinging once the boss drops again. From Trick Attack to Drill to Ley Lines, there are very important mechanics that get held up. Hell, I've seen transitions as a MCH make it so I had to delay Wildfire because the timing just wasn't right. This is normal.

SMN is unique in these problems in that it has not one, but several core mechanics that can be screwed up by boss jumps that, once desynced, basically cannot be synced again because too much damage is tied up in them, meaning you have to keep them rolling but it doesn't feel very good forcing them, especially with how bloated the class is and how often it has to constantly be pushing buttons.

If you made it so only Trance was your delayed mechanic, then it wouldn't matter half as much because at least it will be consistent about it, and restarting the rotation from there, while not fantastic, at least isn't awful. But none of that matters right now because the class is a hot mess to handle as is.

[HeulGDarian]

What's funny is they did exactly this for PvP SMN. It baffles me that they didn't think to do it on the PvE version.

pls no smn losing actions would suck.

[HeulGDarian]

sure the time before the next dwt bhm frb would stay the same. but you add a 20 seconds window of another bahamut basically . and currently bahamut feels really bad . the egi actions Don't have a cool down problem since they are a stack mech and allows you to have a 30 seconds window of when to use those actions. amassing ruin 4s and then using them during Demi summoning already doesn't work for bahamut cause you want to also use ruin 4s to move outside of dreadwyrm or toweave the ogcds that are not in trance . there is no possible way to do this unles the ruin 2 and ruin 4 get a different button so you can be able to control when would you want to lose potency for the sake of making the demi rotation have more potencies. to me the opposite road sounds much better and they could make it so that death flare instead of a finisher or a constant upgrade like fbt be a spell ogcd you can use twice they could also make bahamut give a dmg buff on entrance to differentiate it even more from pheonix pheonix being more of a healing and burn and bahamut being more carnage and despair o.o. that would also be a nice pararell to demis alternative of devotion. Yoshi p pls make devotion different for its egi and buff them up OwO

[dinnertime]

words

I think Aetherflow and Trance being Aetherflow-based was fine and should be reverted back into PvE SMN but that's just me. Not exactly like how PvP does it though.

pls no smn losing actions would suck.

I'm not saying it should be exactly like PvP SMN. What SMN (also) needs right now is to cut down on buttons because there's plenty of them that are locked behind and locked from other abilities anyway.

But I'd argue SMN needs some actions removed and/or adjusted because some of it makes the job unnecessarily busy for most people.

[ShadowNyx3]

snip

The broader point that I would like to make about this is that simply adding Bahamut to DWT isn't doing enough. No matter which of the two scenarios is chosen, there are many, many other things that would have to be adjusted to make things work; I simply believe that separating Phoenix allows for more freedom in design.

Summoner needs a phase like DWT to weave everything that it has and give the player some relief when it comes to unpunished movement and that phase needs to be able to be used freely. You say that FBT provides you with 20s of mobility, which it does, but that mobility still comes attached to your biggest damage output (thus can't be delayed) and is still punished because of the Demi-summons and their problematic movement that can cause the loss of their auto-abilities. Add Bahamut to DWT and now you have the same problem on both ends of the rotation and no simple instant-cast phase to give you any relief. If Demi-summons could ever be fixed to not drop their abilities when you move or have an arbitrary delay upon their summoning where they won't respond to your action, then these phases would be free of any movement punishment, but that still leaves us with a very problematic 40s of downtime between them (to say nothing of those damage phases being tied to the strict 60s cycle still). With only being able to weave Energy Drain and Fester/Painflare during a Demi phase, this means that all four Egi-Assaults must be used in the 40s between trances, along with Enkindle, Devotion, Tri-disaster, and the other ED and its two actions, with only the four Ruin IV procs, swiftcast, and a hard-casted Bio III to use as means to not lose damage while weaving. Even if you try to mitigate this by removing Egi-Assaults, what does the rotation become at that point? Even more of a Ruin III spamfest with even less interactive pets?

Removing Phoenix from its trance breaks the cycle into more manageable parts and that is the point I'm trying to make. Imagine the rotation at that point in its simplest terms: Trance -> Demi -> Filler -> Repeat. You begin with a trance to weave in all of your Egi-related abilities, you move into a heavy-hitting Demi-summon, then you fill the gap before your next trance with whatever needs to be done. Except that's being rather restrictive, as the only thing that can't be changed (If trances are still tied to a 60s CD) are the trances themselves. Those Demi-summons could be used at any point in the 60s cycle, as long as you're not delaying the use of your next trance. It's my belief that turning the rotation back into something like this allows for much better design going forward, as each phase in this case can be adjusted more freely to feel better to use while trying to come up with new mechanics to ease the 40s downtime phase in the other scenario could create even more problems.

[Besame]

Leveled her to 71, don't care for it and tank pet is gone so she can sit, that is all.

[Dahlinea]

pls no smn losing actions would suck.

SMN right now has some skills that could make their way out to improve the rotation and make it more clean. For example, there is literally no need for two Egi Assaults. Everything could be achieved the same with a single Egi Assault with increased potency and giving 2 stacks of Ruin IV for charge spent. Having two Egi actions don't bring any complexity to the job, just the meaningless chore of having to press two buttons between gcds, sometimes incurring in clipping of spells depending of your connection.

The matter of joining DWT with Bahamut or splitting FBT and Phoenix is debatable because either have their ups and downs. Also the Bahamut phase feels bad either way and needs to be addressed, but I don't think merging it with Trance is the right choice. We need the Trance phase to weave most of our oGCDs (Devotion, Egi Enkindle, Energy Drain, Egi Assaults, etc).

If during Bahamut they increase Ruin II potency to Ruin III potency or allow free Ruin IV casts (as it is with PvP SMN, like dinner said), then it will improve a bit that phase.

[HeulGDarian]

The broader point that I would like to make about this is that simply adding Bahamut to DWT isn't doing enough. No matter which of the two scenarios is chosen, there are many, many other things that would have to be adjusted to make things work; I simply believe that separating Phoenix allows for more freedom in design.

Removing Phoenix from its trance breaks the cycle into more manageable parts and that is the point I'm trying to make. Imagine the rotation at that point in its simplest terms: Trance -> Demi -> Filler -> Repeat. You begin with a trance to weave in all of your Egi-related abilities, you move into a heavy-hitting Demi-summon, then you fill the gap before your next trance with whatever needs to be done. Except that's being rather restrictive, as the only thing that can't be changed (If trances are still tied to a 60s CD) are the trances themselves. Those Demi-summons could be used at any point in the 60s cycle, as long as you're not delaying the use of your next trance. It's my belief that turning the rotation back into something like this allows for much better design going forward, as each phase in this case can be adjusted more freely to feel better to use while trying to come up with new mechanics to ease the 40s downtime phase in the other scenario could create even more problems.

this would give if I'm not wrong 15 seconds if they make fbtrance have the same duration . I'll be honest I've been pumpered by stormblood summoners mobility where using ruin 2 to weave or for mobilty wasn't a huge loss. it sounds like a decent idea but introducing more abilities sounds like a tough thing . i think spreading the abilities on the 2 mins window is less appealing than condensing the 2 min rotation . this could happen by reverting energy drain to aetherflow with 2 stacks and 30 second cd and having trance chained to it like it was before this would reduce the dead zone of ruining till trance comes up again off .Making trance be a 2 stacks ability and reducing the cd would also be a sudo fix and would keep the energy drain. sure tridisaster and devotion are the biggest offenders of getting fcked by cool down but cooldowns are the easiest to be fixed . the egi actions Don't really have trouble since you got a 60 seconds period before having to use one to not lose dps if they are at 0 stacks and 30 if they are at 1. there is a good reason to have this ruin spam at the end, it helps adding more summon periods for when and if they add more of them that's why still need 2 mins before Demi pheonix like you needed 2 mins for bahamut in stormblood.

[ShadowNyx3]

If during Bahamut they increase Ruin II potency to Ruin III potency or allow free Ruin IV casts (as it is with PvP SMN, like dinner said), then it will improve a bit that phase.

This is definitely the easiest and most reasonable thing that can be done to smooth out Bahamut for right now. Down the line, I would like to see the Demi-summons be the force that changes the Summoner actions to things like Fountain of Fire and Brand of Purgatory. Who wouldn't love to cast Flare Breath from their character while Bahamut is present?

snip

Essentially, what I outlined is actually only a 1 min cycle because Bahamut and Phoenix would then be mirrors of each other, so it couldn't be condensed any further than that without causing problems with the desired 60s building blocks that all rotations have. Obviously, having Bahamut and Phoenix do the same thing would not be all that interesting mechanically, but again, my point is that each aspect is able to exist on its own while being able to be designed into something entertaining in the future. Because you can have different Summons filling the Demi-role and potentially different Egis viable for the filler role, you open the design up to making something that flows naturally. For example, Phoenix has given us an ability like Everlasting Flight as potential utility. Obviously the devs intended that to be useful in some regard, but its not because of how restricted its timing is. Open your mind to seeing how an ability like that could be used on another Demi...say Bahamut having a Lohs Daih ability that puts a 3% magic damage increase on nearby enemies and you've just created a window where other magic users in your party are waiting to see the Dreadwyrm appear to pump out some heavy magic damage. And all that is possible because you keep Bahamut free of your strict rotational cooldown. And by making Phoenix do the same, you grant that freedom to Everlasting Flight too, where maybe during your 1 min Phoenix cycle you aren't expecting any damage buffs, so you delay the Phoenix Summoning a bit to help a particularly heavy healing section.

I do agree that the old Aetherflow system is the best the rotation could ever hope to being unrestricted, as a trance tied to a 60s CD still needs to be used on cooldown to not lose any potential Demis, I only offer this solution as a compromise between where SMN seems to want to go and where it needs to maintain its roots.

[HeulGDarian]

This is definitely the easiest and most reasonable thing that can be done to smooth out Bahamut for right now. Down the line, I would like to see the Demi-summons be the force that changes the Summoner actions to things like Fountain of Fire and Brand of Purgatory. Who wouldn't love to cast Flare Breath from their character while Bahamut is present?


I do agree that the old Aetherflow system is the best the rotation could ever hope to being unrestricted, as a trance tied to a 60s CD still needs to be used on cooldown to not lose any potential Demis,

A lot of people agree with that including me and hopefully the devs will see that and actually reverse that change.