SMN 5.1 Job adjustments

[EllieShadeflare]

I think the Egi Assaults to GCD just about killed the SMN's flow, especially if they're still linked to Ruin IV.

It feels like an incredibly tonedeaf decision to fix something that nobody thought or considered an issue.

[Grimoire-M]

I’m for the Egi Assault changes mainly because it’s more reliable than just Ruin IV. My primary concern is the potential to ghost their actions when weaving them into Bahamut. That .75s difference for being on the GCD will likely make Bahamut worse to summon but easier to manage once summoned. I hope the assaults themselves deal legitimate damage sourced from the Summoner in addition to their current effects too, otherwise I expect some people to miss their damage entirely trying to weave within the constraints of the current system, on top of the unchanged problems with Energy Drain and Tri-disaster being shifted to compensate for the instant damage.

It’s not what I personally would have focused on, but it is a good direction to take the job in, if they follow through properly.

[Karshan]

I think the Egi Assaults to GCD just about killed the SMN's flow, especially if they're still linked to Ruin IV.

It feels like an incredibly tonedeaf decision to fix something that nobody thought or considered an issue.

I don't know if it's a solution, but the way egi assault worked and with R4, it's definitely one of the gripes most people had with smn, not "nobody considered an issue"

[Tobias_Azuryon]

There's a few things that come to mind when thinking of this change.

First, is without a significant dps buff to the Egi Assaults, this is objectively worse than it being oGCD. Egi Assaults (specifically Ifrit) were already unwieldy, but moving them to a GCD is a significant step down unless it comes at a dps gain and/or being a central part of the identity of the class.

Second, if it still has charges and is still instant cast, it looks like it's just going to be Summoner's version of Gauss Round and Ricochet, but worse, because as stated previously they're GCD. This means its only purpose is replacing Ruin 2? Which is pretty damn underwhelming.

Third, the devs were against weaving it looks like due to ping problems, but my biggest issue with this whole idea is that they were already taking away the dots and identity of the SMN to begin with. If I don't get rewarded for dots, and everything else is flat damage, I'm just a BLM with a laggy pet. An inferior version of both BLM and RDM because I don't get rewarded for engaging with some of the biggest parts of the kit that get me to my big deeps (Bahamut/Phoenix).

I'm all for things changing to make the egi assaults integral to the combos we have, but the idea of them taking the assaults, putting them on GCD, and just going "There ya go" is a huge deterrent from me going back to the class, when I was already kinda bummed about how they play at 80.

Because of Egi's lagging, it's kinda weird to think about. So now instead of hitting Egi assault, getting Ifrit to the boss, and then waiting on Further Ruin to proc while using your regular cooldowns, you end up with this weird middle ground where you do a Ruin 3, Egi Assault, Ruin 3, Ruin 4??? another Egi assault?

I'm all for testing it when it comes out, but I'm still of the mind that ifrit needs to be single target ranged and Garuda needs to be AOE ranged and the system revolve around doing combos with your pet instead of this weird dumpster where all the rejected skills from other classes go to die.

[Dahlinea]

It feels like they've decided to ignore most of our complaints and suggestions to improve the flow of the job (there were pretty good and reasonable ones btw) and went with whatever was more easy for them to do.

But, of course, I hope that these changes on SMN were properly tested and the rotation has finally a flow to it, because I don't want to stay with a broken job till the end of the expansion.

[Osmond]

Hmm, well if they are making egi-assaults in a way like ruin 2 as a instant gcd, I'm curious on the potency of the ability itself. Will it be stronger on on par w/ ruin 2's? You still need to use then for ruin 4 stacks in the end. Overall, i'm curious to try it out. If it makes me to do less buttons, but by high on my DPS..I'm ok with it. Tri-disaster giving a potency dmg, something just tells me that it'll be 100 potency, but the full duration bane on multiple enemies, i'll take the change since they have to buff the potencies of the other spells.

[Shurrikhan]

I think the Egi Assaults to GCD just about killed the SMN's flow, especially if they're still linked to Ruin IV.

It feels like an incredibly tonedeaf decision to fix something that nobody thought or considered an issue.

The slow response of Egi Assaults and the inability to reliably weave two Egi Assaults into the same oGCD period without the second action wasting the first were very frequent SMN complaints upon Shadowbringer's release...

[Taranok]

I’m for the Egi Assault changes mainly because it’s more reliable than just Ruin IV. My primary concern is the potential to ghost their actions when weaving them into Bahamut. That .75s difference for being on the GCD will likely make Bahamut worse to summon but easier to manage once summoned. I hope the assaults themselves deal legitimate damage sourced from the Summoner in addition to their current effects too, otherwise I expect some people to miss their damage entirely trying to weave within the constraints of the current system, on top of the unchanged problems with Energy Drain and Tri-disaster being shifted to compensate for the instant damage.

It’s not what I personally would have focused on, but it is a good direction to take the job in, if they follow through properly.

They won't. These are band-aid changes to try to get the class usable, but I strongly suspect it will be a situation like Machinist in SB. That is, some people will really like the changes, but it will be a chaotic mess of a class still that needs more work done on it.

Which is fine. This is a mid-expansion change, I wasn't expecting a complete rework of the class, but it probably will still need one as the class is looking to be even more disjointed than it already was in terms of competing designs.

That said, in terms of overall flow, it does appear to be a massive, massive improvement. Even if Egi Assault is a spell you have to cast, it's not causing a GCD DPS loss to cast it, and since you'd only need 1 double weave of oGCDs between trances, it probably will feel better anyways.

But let's look at the changes:

• No ruination: Amazing
• Egi Assault no longer bloating oGCDs: Amazing
• Egi Assaults as a GCD, mixed bag, depends on if they keep charges and/or are instant: Cautiously optimistic.
• 100% chance of bane extending duration. Meh. For the most part I baned after refreshing DoTs anyways so this isn't exactly going to help, except to extend the duration after a primary mob is about to die? : Not exactly great, but not exactly terrible.
• No mention of Outburst potency changes: Cautiously optimistic, we'll see.
• No mention of any AI changes or fixes to make the pets not stupid: Here we go again.

I mean, we'll see, ultimately, how good the changes are. The class looks like it will at least not flow like crap though, and honestly that's about all I could have hoped for.

[Dyvid]

The community got what they asked for whether they like it or not.

[Aomine1992]

The community got what they asked for whether they like it or not.

Not really lol this is only one part of the complaints where is the bigger one in my opinion was the fact that our Demi summons have to be hip to hip with us or they start ghosting attacks. Or aetherpact coming from the pet which delays almost all the time. This fixes busy part of the job and nothing more honestly. If anything Bahamut will just become even worse to summon then he already is.