SMN: Further Ruin stacks on the Job Guage

[Gruntler]

The title says it all. Shadowbringers made Further Ruin into a buildable resource to be spent as the rotation and fight needs--when it was just a single proc, having it light up and be hit made sense. But now that it's a resource, it should be placed on the job gauge (probably the Aetherflow gauge, fits fine there) so that it can be front and center, much in the same way Fourfold Feathers is on its gauge.

To be honest, I'm surprised this wasn't done with the job changes in 5.0.

[Myon88]

I'm surprised this wasn't done with the job changes in 5.0.

I totally agree, and think that's a clue as to how half baked and possibly last minute summoner's 5.0 design was really. The whole point of job gauges existing was to track all important job specific mechanics in a central location instead of having to parse their tiny icons from your buff bar, they made that very clear when they introduced gauges as a new major design element. It stands to reason that if you're still having to do that, something doesn't quite add up. It might reflect a similarly unfocused design intent behind the job itself, which frankly matches up to the feedback you often hear about smn, that it has many disjointed resource systems that don't really mesh together in intuitive ways.

Funnily enough I remember something similar being stated in one of the pre-Shadowbringers interviews too, something like "We revamped the job because people were finding it difficult to know what the correct rotation was". I'm not sure if they succeeded considering the state summoner launched in this expansion. They traded the complexity and nuance of aetherflow away (not to mention aetherflow as the central ability tying everything together) and now things it used to govern are just.. there and don't have any relation to each other.

[Gruntler]

Imma disagree on that--like SMN had a lot going for it, but none of it really 'fit together' well in StB, if we're being completely honest. Now the job does feel like it works together--you have your little pet phases, where you're directing them to gather Further Ruin, you have your Bahamut phases, where you prep and then unleash your massive dragon, and you have your phoenix phase. The plethora of instant casts in all of these dovetail with the ogcd emphasis, it does fit together intuitively, compared to 5.0 and 4.x summoners.

I get there's some big brain stuff you can't do with it, but it doesn't feel like like a rotation that has a flow, rather than one that's just 'JOHN FN MADDEN' all the time.

But Im a shit summoner, so take my opinion with a bowl of salt.

[Mansion]

I agree, 4 littles markers that would light up around the Atherflow or Bahamut/phenix gauge would be a nice addition. Or a figure like the charges on the Ruin IV spell.
I had to move things around in my HUD to keep an eye on my current stacks thanks to the buff icon.

[RylaBee]

I would like Enkindle to be replaced with Enkindle Bahamut/Phoenix when those are summoned.

It seems pointless for this to be two buttons, since you only can have one pet out at a time.
Good example is how Phoenix will replace basic nuke and basic aoe spells with Phoenix versions of it.

[Gruntler]

There might be some back end reason for that, based around the cooldowns of abilities or how ability replacement works; I dunno. Even if there isn't, it might be a general 'We don't put abilities with different cooldowns on the same button for conveyance reasons' which is a solid enough reason, I suppose.