Thread: Summoner 5.05 changes are in

Originally Posted by Nyoraii

Hahah I completely agree, 500 IQ post imo.

The worst thing that can happen to a class is to be "passable", because if they can procrastinate and not work on it, they will do just that.

Well, I come from WoW and I've witnesses horribly performing classes stay like that for years, expansions long.

The handling of SMN over the past few expansions has made me a SCH main. >.>
I get the convenience of leveling a Magic DPS for the story block without being required to play it.

And while I'm grateful for the tiny QoL upgrade of 5.05, it doesn't address the actual issues with the class.
Namely, so many delays because of how Egis work.

Summon/swap an egi? Three seconds of downtime while the animation locks pop the little booger into existence. Attacking something? Ifrit's dragging its little non-existent feet to reach the target.
Egi assault: action gets stuck in queue.
Oh crud, I forgot to Akh Morn, I still got three seconds ...aaaand the egi disappears before I get my 30k crit off.

For all of SMN's frantic OGCD button pressing, the job feels so. ruddy. slow.

Titan's not even useful anymore. 20% HP barrier that gets popped in one hit, because caster HP is pitiful? gg
And Titan 1 doesn't even proc Ruin IV. The opportunity cost (losing Ruin IV, wasted charge that could be used for another egi...) doesn't justify the effect.

SMN doesn't even really feel like a summoner. It's a WoW Warlock with more integrated pet mechanics, except now the pet can't even tank. (Can't take damage either, so that's a plus.)
None of SMN's hits feel that impactful, even if there's some wide-area effect, because the damage has been tamed in favor of death by a thousand paper cuts. (Two DoTs, Ruin casts, egi assaults)
And get a look at that Lv80 gear, by the way. Tiny SMN peen and some gen-1 looking clothes. There's zero respect for the job.

And then there's sustain/healing. What a terrible joke 5.0 gave us there. No CC, a lackluster barrier, and a 700HP heal, which at level 80 also adds a 2k/tick regen. Why is Everlasting Flight or Phoenix-egi even a thing if they don't want SMN to have at least some healing?..

I am honestly glad they finally fixed the whiff from bane when you cast it too quickly after dots, I hated having to wait to actually make sure it went off.

I am a little surprised that as many unhappy summoners that are out there complaining about where the class is, that they didn't do a little potency boost until they fix the class. Both for smn and nin. Damage plummets when bad design choices work against us, such as dots falling off. The design flaw is very evident in casual pug content where you have to spend a lot of time accounting for other issues, say multiple healers going down when you are the only one who can rez in party. Because of the rigidity of the rotation, the lack of flexibility makes it difficult to recover to where you would like to be.

As Rauderi says, how can a class feel so busy and yet so slow and unsatisfying at the same time? I'm not sure.

What frustrates me the most about currently SMN is that even in a perfect rotation in a dummy you still have to use some Ruin 2 (4 each 2 minutes if I remember correctly), I know people have many issues with the Job, but for me this is the most annoying of them all, they really should give enough ruin 4 on a 2 minute rotation where you only use the super weak Ruin 2 if you mess up or for unplanned movement, something as simple as making Fester or heck even Energy Drain generate Further Ruin would be both a needed numbers boost and a much needed mobility boost for the job while waiting for further changes on 4.1.