Thread: SMN Feedback after Savage Launch/Live Letter for 5.08/5.1

Hey there,

I spawned the earlier big post regarding Summoner and I thought it was appropriate to spawn a new one now that the live letter was over and I had a chance to use summoner in all savage content so far. I will simply summarize what feels good or bad about each and every ability whilst being as concise as I can be as to why. I was certain to be as complete as possible with this feedback as I mostly likely will stop after this post.

Notation:

Ghost = Visual element appears but effect does not apply or damage does not go through.

AF = Aetherflow

DWT/FBT = Dreadywyrm Trance/Firebird Trance

FoF/BoP = Fountain of Fire (Ruin 3 Replacement)/Brand of Purgatory (Outburst Replacement) in FBT

Energy Drain/Aetherflow:

As an overall point: SMN’s requested that they did not have to make the party wait for so long with regards to Aetherflow. I do not think this current iteration of Energy Drain is what the vast majority of SMN’s had in mind when asking for this. I think most wanted 3 Stacks available after a wipe or an ability to quick reset Aetherflow outside of combat like Ninja has Hide for Mudras.

1. Bad - Requires a target. Can result (and does result) in situations where having 1s left before and the boss disappears or the dungeon mobs die. Just feels bad in general. Old Aetherflow avoided this. BLM’s Polygot is a superior form of this in its current incarnation.
2. Bad - The tag of “cannot be used outside of combat” just feels bad on such an ability in general as it cannot be used pre-pull whilst pre-pull abilities still exists on other jobs. See: Sharpcast (BLM), Acceleration (RDM), Standard step (DNC), Mudras (NIN). These can all be used pre-pull in some fashion and require some form of countdown. Could easily be fixed with a similar ability to hide that NIN has or simply reset to max stacks on death to remove wait time.
3. Bad – Reduced downtime performance when other jobs have obtained to improve their downtime performance: maintaining Greased Lightning (MNK), Umbral Hearts (BLM), Kassatsu Charges (NIN)
4. Bad - It increases the number of OGCD’s when compared to previous Aetherflow to 2 a minute as opposed to 1. This adds to the “busyness”
5. Bad – No link to the SMN cycle. Aetherflow made trances feel better as they were more flexible. As AF is no longer linked it means trances can’t be rushed which removes an avenue of demonstrating player skill whilst also creating unforgiving and strict dot timings as we no longer have an “on-demand” dot refresh in the form of Trances giving you a tri-disaster refresh on use.
6. Neutral - Reduced Aetherflow options. We only have 2 abilities linked to it now as opposed to 4.

Energy Siphon:

1. Bad - Terrible excuse for a button. It’s clear what the purpose of the button is. What is not clear is why someone thought this button would be a good addition to the SMN toolkit. To quote my earlier thread:
   
   
   If Energy Drain read:
   "Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100 to the target and 40 to all enemies nearby it"
   
   Energy Siphon would have no reason to exist. Somehow, it was decided that cutting that piece of text off from Energy Drain and making its own button made for an interesting ability.
2. Bad - Low potency & Bad form of AOE. Locked behind a 30s CD shared with Energy Drain along with its restrictions.

All Ruin GCD’s:

1. Bad – Dependence on dots feels bad when applied to all Ruin GCD’s. This only generates ways in which to punish summoners. Debuff cap makes Fates/Hunts a problem. Quick to die adds also a problem as you want to dot them to maximize GCD damage but the time dotting them could have been better spent spamming Ruin 3. Emphasized due to the removal of on-demand tri-disaster resets because of how DWT/FBT now works.
2. Neutral – Ruin 3 vs. Ruin 2 Potency difference. Bigger punishment for using R2 instead of R3 emphasizes skill difference. However, large difference also weakens mobility and gives the feeling that we should turret as much as possible which some may or may not like. Some view the turret emphasis as conflicting with the OGCD weaving requirement which emphasises R2 use.

Ruin 4:

1. Neutral – Ruin 4 generation no longer RNG. However, it is tied to Egi Assaults which have a multitude of problems. That said, we can now optimize our uses of R4 more but in practice we still use them whenever we have to move.
2. Good – Stackable procs are a welcome addition. Can use them in trade for Ruin 2 when a weave is necessary

DOTS:

1. Bad - Over-reliance on dots for Ruin damage. Only introduces way to punish. Better to clip the GCD in some cases than lose potency on Ruin cast: See All Ruin’s point #1.
2. Bad - Switching targets to low HP adds mean neutered damage. Required to refresh dots to maximize damage: See All Ruin’s point #1
3. Bad - Methods to reapply dots via Tri-disaster are locked behind rigid cooldowns which results in strict timings and upkeeps of dots when previously they were more flexible with respect to any mistakes. Also is bad for when boss’s disappear and reappear as it messes with the dot timings which forces you to reset them the next trance.
4. Bad – AOE Dot damage reduced via Bane.
5. Neutral - Less potency on dots by default and a greater focus on GCD usage.
6. Good – Response of Bio and Tri-Disaster application. Fixed in Patch 5.05 after many years of suffering.

Pet/Egi’s:

1. Bad – Pet potency still exists. Please rectify this and put it as player potency. Please. Stop making us do math to discover how much our pet potency is and let us understand how it is by just glancing at the ability.
2. Bad – Egi Assaults feel bad to use and create the “busy” feeling for SMN with increased CPM requirements. 4 OGCD’s a minute. Can be cut down and still grant Ruin 4 stacks (addressed separately)
3. Bad/Bug – Melee pets no longer auto attack as they did in Stormblood. Ifrit is now only approximately 1.2x Garuda for single target which means its barely better.
4. Bad - Abilities can ghost and not to damage or give Ruin 4 stacks. Re-creatable by simply using Egi assaults prior to summoning Bahamut/Phoenix.
5. Bad - Pets disappear if the SMN is sprinting in a dungeon in a rush to follow the tanks. Please increase their movespeed and better yet, make their auto attacks instant with 3s CD so they could cast and move very quickly.
6. Neutral/Bad – Now account for even less of the Summoner’s DPS contribution. Renewed calls for their deletion have more clout as their removal would be less impactful due to their reduced DPS contribution and their current clunky implementation in the SMN kit/rotation.
7. Neutral/Good – Pets have a more defined area in which to use them. Garuda AOE, Ifrit single target. Previously it was less defined and mostly done in a very optimized fashion.
8. Good – New form of survival tool via Titan Egi. 3-5s switch required to get the shield
9. Good – More responsive to pet commands than they were in Stormblood.

DWT:

1. Bad - Fixed cooldown of 60s makes DWT use extremely rigid. Flexibility made the SMN kit very fun to use and it is ideal if trances were made flexible again.
2. Bad - Delaying DWT delays entire cycle. Aetherflow delay did not delay the entire cycle as you could affortd to sit on stacks for up to 60s where as you are forced to use DWT as soon as you can.
3. Bad - No longer on demand tri-disaster reset. This makes dot timings very rigid and offers no flexibility in dot timings. Must follow a strict schedule and causes current dot issues regardless of what you do.
4. Bad - Lower duration makes it harder to get maximum Ruin 3 uses and deathflare. If you have high ping, you could miss the deathflare. This change was unnecessary
5. Neutral/Bad - No more magic bonus makes it even more of a glorified deathflare button. If this was retained, rewarded for using ogcds inside of it.
6. Neutral/Bad - Currently cut short on each use to account for raid buff windows due to how rigid they are. This comes back to point #1
7. Good – Reduces cast time of all abilities by 2.5s. This means resurrection are only 5.5s long and outburst are both instant. Whilst the former would be incredibly niche, instant outbursts are very welcome.

Bahamut:

1. Bad – First wyrmwave is unresponsive via Summoning Bahamut first and then doing a GCD very fast after summoning him. This is a change from Stormblood and makes it harder to generate the maximum number of wyrmwaves. It is requested that this is changed back to how it was originally where he would respond instantly to your first GCD.
2. Bad - Bahamut still can’t sit still. Can cause issues with regards to Enkindles/Akhmorns. If you use Enkindle late under movement, you can ghost your akhmorn.
3. Bad – Akhmorn can still ghost when it shouldn’t ideally. Linked to the above in some cases but not restricted to it. Bahamut ideally should always be able to do the final Akhmorn before flying away.
4. Bad – Less interaction with Bahamut. Feels bad compared to before. OGCD interaction made him special. Now he feels pretty pathetic. He lacks “cool” moves like Phoenix does though there are definitely opportunities to add moves to his kit by re-using assets from earlier Bahamut fights.
5. Good – Reduced Enkindle recast time for easier use/earlier use/less ghosting opportunity.
6. Good – Now available after 1 DWT so we have our “mini burst” faster.

FBT:

1. Bad – Can’t sit still similar to Bahamut. See Bahamut issues.
2. Neutral/Bad – Outburst required for Brand. Enables mistake of back to back FoF’s via R3. Consider making Outburst purely AOE and lower potency than FoF on single target or consider simply changing R3 to FoF followed by BoP followed by FoF etc. No real reason to have it swap button. Areas where unintentional AOE is a detriment to the party are close to non-existent.
3. Neutral - Everlasting flight should not be a thing. Covered later.
4. Good – Cooler version of Bahamut with better visuals. Better than Bahamut in general.

Devotion:

1. Bad – Use is obstructed due to Demi summon design and it can also ghost like Egi Assaults. Can ghost. Unusable for 40 seconds out of every 2 minutes due to Demi summons disabling pets.
2. Neutral – Increased damage buff to the party 5% from 2%. 3 minute cooldown. Removed Healing increase element. More in line with 3 minute buffs but arguably one of the weakest (if not the weakest)

Enkindle:

1. Neutral/Bad – Ifrit Egi Enkindle is weaker on single target and AOE than Garuda’s. I do not think this is ideal unless pet swapping was to be encouraged. Ifrit and Titan should have stronger enkindles with respect to single target unless pet switching in this way is the intended function.
2. Neutral – Feels weak for a 2 minute cooldown.
3. Good - Fixed cooldown and not dependent on R4 RNG

Bane:

1. Neutral – Now has a larger fall off for < 5 targets but greater damage on more. Notably Bad with fewer targets which might be more common in a raid environment.
2. Neutral/Good – Now also spreads Ruination. However, it is now a requirement to have Ruination to do maximum damage with Outburst.
3. Good – No longer costs an Aetherflow stack to use.

Outburst:

1. Neutral/Bad - Dependant on Ruination for good potency. Similar to that of Ruin and dots dependency.
2. Neutral/Bad – Feels bad to use during Bahamut where you will be forced to clip for optimal play for weaving OGCDs in an AOE situation.
3. Neutral/Bad – Link to BoP in FBT rotation. See: FBT point #3
4. Good - Usable outside of trances for good potency AOE.
5. Good – Instant cast time inside trances instead

EDIT: 11/08/2019

AOE Changes of Note Summarised:
Post: SMN AOE relative to other jobs

When I initially made this thread, I forgot to put this section is and I think its worth highlighting regardless. I’ve copy pasted this back in as a result:

1. Unable to hold Aetherflow between pulls or refresh it during downtime or if a mob dies with 1s left on CD feels bad in general. Similar argument for trances when this issue was pretty much non-existent in 4.1. Results in weakened AOE DPS for SMN.
2. Deathflare reduced in potency due to 10% magic buff removed from DWT. In effect reduced from 440 -> 400. Fall off is 50% less for remaining instead of 10% less, 20 less etc. This level of damage fall off is not present in a multitude of classes that arguably should have it.
3. Akhmorn reduced in potency in general. Also higher flat fall off similar to deathflare.
4. Reduce effectiveness at bane at < 5 targets, but better for more targets. However dots were reduced in potency from 100 to 80 so AOE damage is reduced regardless.
5. Painflare reduced in potency by 30. We do get more uses however which theoretically puts us at 60 potency positive here.
6. Garuda Slipstream is unwieldly to use. Often targets are moved out of. Consider it applying a dot if a mob was inside the buff and only refreshing the dot if it no longer has it for more reliability.
7. SMN needs to meet a lot of pre-requisites for maximizing AOE damage. Other jobs have simple combos that result in massive AOE damage and have no fall off or unchanged fall off causing SMN to fall behind in this regard. (Nastrond has 0 fall off etc)
8. Brand of Purgatory is a small upgrade to Outburst when you consider its only available every other GCD. 50% of 350 = 175 to all remaining targets every other GCD meaning just under 90 potency to all other targets when averaged to a GCD.

Major Suggestions/Improvements for 5.08/5.1:

Aetherflow Back (60s) and linked to cycle:

Operates how it did before. Press on CD to get stacks. No longer required to be in combat or have a target. Consider introducing a way to instantly reset the cooldown out of combat (Like Hide for ninja mudras) or reset stacks to maximum on wipe. This was the only change needed to Aetherflow previously.

It is HEAVILY preferred that SMN is balanced around having Aetherflow available pre-pull and usable outside of combat/without a target. This is because it most definitely improves the feel of summoner for me and I hate having those situations when I can’t refresh Aetherflow for one reason or another. Please balance around this whether this is done by reducing the number of Aetherflow stacks per 60s, potency reductions or otherwise. Consider that doing this would also remove approximately 200 potency/min from single target calculations with Energy Drain no longer having a potency attached to it.

Suggestion: On using Aetherflow, DWT becomes “usable”. Once DWT is used, Aetherflow upgrades so that next use would make FBT “usable” (FBT retains the requirement that Summon Bahamut must have been used previously). Once FBT is used, Aetheflow changes back so that the next usable trance is DWT and so on. This is an improvement on when Aetherflow stack usage was a requirement to enabling DWT as opposed to simply refreshing Aetherflow.

DWT is still only executable in combat to prevent further pre-pull issues (aka Bahamut pre-pull)

1. Lets call Aetherflow that enables DWT “Energy Drain”.
2. Lets call Aetherflow that enables FBT “Energy Siphon”.

Example (Assuming Energy Drain is available outside of combat and usable without a target):

1. Use Energy Drain Pre-pull (or hopefully already have full stacks after a wipe). DWT is now available to use but cannot be used unless in combat.
2. Upon using DWT or at its ending, Energy Drain upgrades to Energy Siphon.
3. Use Energy Siphon. Now DWT changes to FBT and FBT is now available to use. It is important to note that you should still be required to use Bahamut before FBT.
4. Upon using FBT or at its ending, Energy Siphon goes back to Energy Drain.

The above method re-introduces flexibility in the SMN design and fixes many issues with regards to the current iteration.

It has the following positives:

1. Good with no target as you can still refresh Aetherflow.
2. Good for pre-pull IF stacks are reset to full after a wipe or a "Hide" ability for ninja mudras was introduced for SMN for Aetherflow.
3. Good because it removed the tag of “Cannot be used outside of combat” and “Cannot be used without a target”
4. Good at boss jumps/boss disappearing/mobs dying as due to point 3.
5. Good at reducing OGCD count (1 less OGCD per minute)
6. Good with regards to the cycle. Aetherflow means trances can be rushed again re-introducing it as a player skill element.
7. Good for on demand tri-disaster resets so dot timings are not so punishing and feel as bad as they currently do. No longer have issues regarding errors in dot refreshing as it is far more flexible with its timing. Further aids target switching as you can instantly trance for dot refresh if need be.
8. Good as you can retain the 60s recast time of DWT/FBT to prevent immediate rushing from DWT -> Bahamut -> FBT in the opener.
9. Good because Energy Siphon is now actually useful and is warmly received whereas the current iteration is badly received due to reasons listed earlier.

Removal of GCD Damage dependency on DOTS:

Simply put, remove the bonus damage to Ruin 1, 2, 3 and 4 based on the dots on the target. This is because of the reasons listed earlier where it is annoying in content which has debuff limits. Further it removes the bad feeling when there are additional mobs with low hp which you currently need to re-dot before you can do full damage. It would be like requiring BLM to have thunder on the target or their Fire 4’s did half damage or worse. Similar argument could be made for any other dot based jobs. This doesn’t feel good. Fester should be special in this regard. The pain of this is emphasized due to how rigid the current cycle is and fixes with regards to the cycle (as my Aetherflow suggestion above) would aid this in some respects, but it would still be a significant problem in the situations listed and as such would be better off removed.

Consolidate Egi Assaults:

A common complaint of summoner is that it feels to busy. This is the first area I would look in reducing “busyness”. Consider consolidating Egi assaults so that they generate the same Ruin 4 stacks per minute whilst reducing overall button presses. If the cooldown is increased, it also improves the feel of the abilities as they would naturally have to be more potent which is a personal preference of mine – I want Egi abilities to feel more powerful and this would be a step in that direction.

Suggestion:

1. Egi Assault 1 and 2 now have a cooldown of 60s. (Optionally no longer has 2 charges)
2. Double their current potency.
3. Each Egi Assault generates 2 Ruin 4 Stacks.

This reduces the OGCD count by 2 per minute (2 down from 4 per minute). It does introduce possible error by the player in using an Egi Assault whilst they have 3 stacks (3 + 2 = 5) when their maximum is 4 stacks, but I think this is acceptable. Further, this is also a nerf to Titan Egi’s defensive shield but I think this is also acceptable or optionally, the % could be change to compensate for this. There are other possible solutions such as consolidating them even further to simply “Egi Assault” so that it would be simply 1 OGCD instead of 4 per minute etc.

Instant Ruin 4 Generation via Egi Assaults:

Consider making them generate Ruin 4 stacks instantly on button press as opposed to having the animation play as a requirement for it. This would result in more responsiveness from pets via having Ruin 4 instantly available and no opportunity to ghost the Ruin 4 generation part of the ability. Titan Egi should also generate Ruin 4 stacks from his shield ability “Earthen Armour”.

Make Devotion a Summoner ability as opposed to an Egi Ability:

This fixes the fact that the move is not available for 40 seconds out of every 2 minutes due to how Demi summons desummon Egis. It would also eliminate any “ghosting” issues with regards to devotion as it is no longer an Egi ability. It makes the ability more reliable which is always good.

Potential Melee Egi’s Bug:

It is unsure if it is intentional but currently both Ifrit and Titan are lacking their basic auto attack functionality which was present in Stormblood. Previously this was accepted as a bug and it is uncertain what has become of it. Without this auto attack, Ifrit is barely stronger than Garuda (approximately 1.2x). Improving this would strengthen the gap between the pets and solidify them more with regards to their function. Further, consider giving melee pets a gap closer as one of their abilities to increase uptime.

Improving the feel of Bahamut:

Some quick suggestions:

1. Re-introduce Bahamut’s interaction with OGCD abilities linked to Aetherflow specifically.
2. Consider changing Ruin 2 to Ruin 4 only in Bahamut Phase and making outburst instant during the duration or have a reduced recast time similar to Astrologian’s GCD’s
3. Fusing DWT and Bahamut together similar to how FBT and Phoenix Summon is “fused”.

Matching Enkindle Damage to Egi Purpose:

Currently Garuda does the best damage via Enkindle on both single target and AOE. Consider making it so that both Titan and Ifrit are superior in this regard but less so in the AOE component.

Potentially Controversial:

Physick:

In an expansion where where SMN/SCH have become less linked, this spell STILL EXISTS. It does no real healing and has no place in the SMN’s toolkit. Unsure why it still exists as physick is now separate from the scholar physick. It should be finally removed after all these years.

Everlasting Flight:

I surely hope this is not controversial. A worse medica 2 on SMN locked behind a rigid cooldown and never saved for any actual healing. Any benefit is purely coincidental. Time of 20s is out of place with regards to most heal over times or damage over times which are a multiple of 3. Server tick potentially inconsistent. Should be deleted or changed to something else. I do not want a heal on my summoner and it is a sad excuse for utility. Mitigations and heals are a planned affair. This ability is locked behind a DPS moves which MUST be used on CD or it is a DPS loss. Please change this ability to be, for instance, a damage buff of 10% to SMN only during the duration of FBT. I do not think SMN’s asked for a medica 2.

Resurrection:

Probably the only real controversial opinion.

I do not think resurrection should be on any DPS. Make it a healer only mechanic similar to how aggro is only a tank mechanic now. This would make raids slightly harder. In return, consider adding another role action to casters as they currently have the least.

Creates a problem where players argue about the value of a resurrection and how it should impact the DPS of the glass that brings it. If SMN must suffer from massively reduced DPS due to resurrection existing, it is my belief that it should be deleted. If, however, it does not contribute to reducing the DPS capability of a summoner, I am fine with its existence. I do not believe a resurrection spell should be responsible for 1000’s of raid dps difference between BLM and SMN/RDM. It should be much much closer. Especially since SMN has greater difficulty in performing a resurrection/greater loss in overall potency when compared to RDM. But overall, I’d personally like to see it be a healer only spell to prevent additional balancing issues to arise between the casters and other jobs in the future.

What do I like about the job? Plenty!

Summoner has always been my favourite job in the FF universe. It IS the most important job in FF history (every single game has summons). I've always felt the WOL should be a summoner lore wise due to the strong relation between summons and summoning and the story in general. Outside of this and specifically the job:

I love the continued focus on Demi Summons. I hope for more focus on the future on this.

I love that phoenix has unique visual animations and more moves than just a "recoloured" akhmorn. I want bahamut to have the same aka different moves that potentially alters how your abilities work (Bahamut should at least have Flare Breath!)

I love pet jobs and dots in general due to my warlock days from world of warcraft. I've loved it since I first switched from BLM to it for my raid group progression and love it still. However, with the way its poorly designed in some respects and very clunky to use with regards to certain aspects, it's difficult to like it as much as I did in 4.1.

I love that it builds up to its "burst" sequence though I do not like, at all, how rigid it is now when compared to before.

I just like the general playstyle of managing dots and performing burst inside burst windows and I previously loved smart execution of trances and demi summons with respect to mechanics which required movement or adds were spawning.

I'm hoping for strong pet/egi abilities down the line which are far more meaningful than these current "Egi Assaults". They feel really weak potency wise and I really want my egi's moves to be more meaningful and potent in general even at the cost of GCD/Ruin damage. The current Egi Assaults also increase the CPM of the class which is incredibly annoying after long sessions of raiding.

I LOVED the old Aetherflow cycle mechanic in 4.1 and still do. It was by far and away my most favourite and played job in this game. In fact, I have multiple alts all 80 SMN. I also loved doing absolutely ludicrous AOE damage in Stormblood and hope that with the improved playability of the job in 5.08/5.1 that it can return to its ways of disgusting AOE damage.

I love the class in general and its why I'm so passionate about my feedback.

Originally Posted by CecMiller

Consolidate Egi Assaults:

A common complaint of summoner is that it feels to busy. This is the first area I would look in reducing “busyness”. Consider consolidating Egi assaults so that they generate the same Ruin 4 stacks per minute whilst reducing overall button presses. If the cooldown is increased, it also improves the feel of the abilities as they would naturally have to be more potent which is a personal preference of mine – I want Egi abilities to feel more powerful and this would be a step in that direction.

Suggestion:

1. Egi Assault 1 and 2 now have a cooldown of 60s. (Optionally no longer has 2 charges)
2. Double their current potency.
3. Each Egi Assault generates 2 Ruin 4 Stacks.

This reduces the OGCD count by 2 per minute (2 down from 4 per minute). It does introduce possible error by the player in using an Egi Assault whilst they have 3 stacks (3 + 2 = 5) when their maximum is 4 stacks, but I think this is acceptable. Further, this is also a nerf to Titan Egi’s defensive shield but I think this is also acceptable or optionally, the % could be change to compensate for this. There are other possible solutions such as consolidating them even further to simply “Egi Assault” so that it would be simply 1 OGCD instead of 4 per minute etc.

Instant Ruin 4 Generation via Egi Assaults:

Consider making them generate Ruin 4 stacks instantly on button press as opposed to having the animation play as a requirement for it. This would result in more responsiveness from pets via having Ruin 4 instantly available and no opportunity to ghost the Ruin 4 generation part of the ability. Titan Egi should also generate Ruin 4 stacks from his shield ability “Earthen Armour”.

I feel like an "easier" solution would be to simply remove the whole "Egi Assault proc'ing Ruin IV" thing.
Otherwise, we'd get "unfavorable" scenarios like you (suddenly) needing Titan-Egi's Earthen Armor, yet couldn't because all Egi Assaults were used for Ifrit-Egi/Garuda-Egi earlier.

Maybe if each pet had its own independent Egi Assault CDs to compensate...

Originally Posted by Exodus-E

Not entirely autonomous, though.
Titan-Egi's Earthen Armor and Garuda-Egi's Slipstream were a step in the right direction in making them both, unique and useful depending on the situation.


With Patch 5.05's adjustments, I think that's precisely what the developers wanted us to do (ie. swapping pets mid-fight depending on the situation).
But again, I feel like tying Ruin IV procs' into their actions kind of worked against that...

I do not believe that the intended mechanic behind pets is to "swap" them. Garuda is primarily AOE and Ifrit single target. Further titan is a dps loss when compared to ifrit too. I think they just made it so that switching between one and another would be less of a dps loss as opposed to the intended way to use pets. This is because you can quick shield youself with a titan egi shield and then switch back if needed. Though, in practice, I never did this during savage and I'm unsure how this will impact things going forward. Its entirely possible that switching to garuda for enkindle and switching back is now a gain but using a move like slip stream and switching back will never be a gain due to how it disappears when you switch pets.

If pet swapping was the intended function, I think they need to show that in the individual egi actions as they are not so different outside of Titan Egi. Enkindle is the odd one out where Garuda's is the strongest for both single target and AOE which I dont think should be the case. Why in the world would you ever use Titan and Ifrit Egi Enkindles then when garuda's is the most potent in all scenarios? Its why I mention Enkindles in my post