Smn Rework Suggestions After LL

**Dyvid** · 09-20-2021 07:33 AM

Well I guess SE will find out if completely reworking a popular job was a smart decision by how many people continue playing it after 6.1

**Atomos** · 09-22-2021 11:48 PM

Originally Posted by Dyvid

Well I guess SE will find out if completely reworking a popular job was a smart decision by how many people continue playing it after 6.1

Hah this only makes me WANT to play it! looks so much more fun. Finally got the summoner most of the player base wanted.

**ChazNatlo** · 09-20-2021 08:09 AM

I suspect the intended complexity is of the "Know the fight" sort. Each summon has a different role based on what you need at the time. Looking at the Live Letter demonstration, from activation of Demi Bahamut, there is about a one minute cooldown. Each of the summons has a 30 second duration. Minus the 15 seconds of Demi, you're only using one and a half summons if you want to get Phoenix up as soon as possible. One of the summons isn't getting used, and the other is only getting partial use.

**Roda** · 09-20-2021 08:18 AM

Originally Posted by ChazNatlo

I suspect the intended complexity is of the "Know the fight" sort. Each summon has a different role based on what you need at the time. Looking at the Live Letter demonstration, from activation of Demi Bahamut, there is about a one minute cooldown. Each of the summons has a 30 second duration. Minus the 15 seconds of Demi, you're only using one and a half summons if you want to get Phoenix up as soon as possible. One of the summons isn't getting used, and the other is only getting partial use.

The semidemis and their skills aren't being used for 30 seconds. They each have 2 or 4 charges (ifrit/garuda&titan) of their special gem skills and then you're done with those phases. That 30 second timer is just to light a fire under your butt so you actually use the skills instead of just ooh and ah at the pretty spell effect of summoning while ruin IIIing or whatever. You're expected to have been in all 3 before your demi phase. There is no pick and choose.

https://youtu.be/WSGdMv72ghI?t=14143

**Ursa_Vonfiebryd** · 09-20-2021 08:14 AM

I understand a lot of the gripe over SMN changes but honestly for the most part, this is how SMN works in almost every other iteration of Final Fantasy, save for FFX. The summoned entity always shows up for a short burst then disappears, leaving the summoner alone on screen for 99% of the time. But FFXIV summoner was never going to be like Yuna summoning the Aeons in FFX. They gave us some pet autonomy, which was nice, and they gave us the ability to tweak our big summon size (bahamut) and egi glams to get cute carby back but it looks like they are finally ripping the bandaid off in Endwalker. Being an old school FF player, I enjoy seeing the full renders for the big attacks, like it used to be. It would have been cool to see egis of some of the other primals but with the way jobs have been handled, I feel like the 5 summons (or summon states now) that summoner has is pretty much all the job can really support, both action and lore wise. In any case, I'll reserve judgement until I get my hands on the job after the expansion goes live. I was good at smn during Stormblood but couldnt quite get the hang of it during Shadowbringers. Hopefully I can reconnect with Endwalker.

**rewd** · 09-20-2021 08:39 AM

Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

I understand a lot of the gripe over SMN changes but honestly for the most part, this is how SMN works in almost every other iteration of Final Fantasy, save for FFX. The summoned entity always shows up for a short burst then disappears, leaving the summoner alone on screen for 99% of the time. But FFXIV summoner was never going to be like Yuna summoning the Aeons in FFX. They gave us some pet autonomy, which was nice, and they gave us the ability to tweak our big summon size (bahamut) and egi glams to get cute carby back but it looks like they are finally ripping the bandaid off in Endwalker. Being an old school FF player, I enjoy seeing the full renders for the big attacks, like it used to be. It would have been cool to see egis of some of the other primals but with the way jobs have been handled, I feel like the 5 summons (or summon states now) that summoner has is pretty much all the job can really support, both action and lore wise. In any case, I'll reserve judgement until I get my hands on the job after the expansion goes live. I was good at smn during Stormblood but couldnt quite get the hang of it during Shadowbringers. Hopefully I can reconnect with Endwalker.

How Summoners work in FF is irrelevant because this is a MMO and you can't copy and paste big summons that cast their ultimate and go away and call it a day. Black Mages in FF don't work alternating an ice and a fire phase, yet no one is asking them to rework the job, for example.

This is not the problem, either. The problem is that the job now is completely devoided of depth and complexity. Or anything remotely engaging, really. It looks even easier and boring than 5.X MCH. Almost healers level of complexity, who at least have to worry about health bars.

The bulk of your rotation is composed of four buttons: Ruin III, Tridisaster and the two pet actions. Demi-summons are SMN's inner release with their 11111 spam, primals seems to be different combinations of 1-2. On top of that, you have no DoTs, or debuffs, or buffs to mantain. Movement is braindead because almost everything is instant. There is no resource management.

If this is really how a DPS job will play, I see a panic 6.1 rework to be inevitable. Much like NIN in 5.1 and to a lesser degree SMN itself.

**Ursa_Vonfiebryd** · 09-26-2021 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by rewd

How Summoners work in FF is irrelevant because this is a MMO and you can't copy and paste big summons that cast their ultimate and go away and call it a day. Black Mages in FF don't work alternating an ice and a fire phase, yet no one is asking them to rework the job, for example.

This is not the problem, either. The problem is that the job now is completely devoided of depth and complexity. Or anything remotely engaging, really. It looks even easier and boring than 5.X MCH. Almost healers level of complexity, who at least have to worry about health bars.

The bulk of your rotation is composed of four buttons: Ruin III, Tridisaster and the two pet actions. Demi-summons are SMN's inner release with their 11111 spam, primals seems to be different combinations of 1-2. On top of that, you have no DoTs, or debuffs, or buffs to mantain. Movement is braindead because almost everything is instant. There is no resource management.

If this is really how a DPS job will play, I see a panic 6.1 rework to be inevitable. Much like NIN in 5.1 and to a lesser degree SMN itself.

It's not irrelevant though, because the devs are finally trying to peel away from the old WoW cookie cutter classes and make something more traditionally FF. This game was built on the Lore and success of its predecessors, and while some people would have picked it up simply because it was the 'new' MMO of the time, a lot of people came over because of franchise itself. I was one of them. And I pretty much HATE how Black Mage works. It's still basically WoW Arcane Mage, and when I first took up the game, I was expecting the Black Mage that I was used to from the many many other FF games I had played. Needless to say, it was not that. I eagerly await the day that Black Mage becomes more like the 'Choose Your Own Adventure Mage' it has been previously--actually, kind of like BLU is now. (Yes, it will suck to 'relearn' my main job but an old school FF player like me still remembers having to learn a completely new battle system each new game--especially if it was a new console).

With all the tearing down and reworking of other jobs, SMN was certainly due. I feel for those who put down the class due to the changes but I'm actually looking forward to it. I've liked what I've seen so far.

**ChazNatlo** · 09-20-2021 08:37 AM

Hmm... That's good. I was worried that there'd be a prefered summon like how almost nobody uses Titan now. You'd still want to choose when to use which summon in the order, but it's good that you use each of them.

**SweetPete** · 09-20-2021 10:15 AM

Originally Posted by Miemi

Never said they're duplicates. I think I explained my point fairly decently in my post. If people want to be blinded by shiny animations and ignore how 90% of playstyle got nuked, so be it.

The dot argument is pretty silly, we just happened to have dots, there's more to smn than dots.

You people are never satisfied. They tried for years to make summoner better and the pet AI sucked and needed to be fixed. When you try for so long sometimes you gotta take another route. Ffxiv summoner was not a true summoner. We know what final fantasy summoner is known for. What we had was a knock off wow dot warlock. The pet was horrible with ghosting. If you wanna ignore that then that’s your problem. Yoshi said he wanted to bring the fantasy of jobs back and the devs definitely nailed it with summoner. Even if the big primals stay out for 2 seconds they do their ultimate attack as they are suppose to, it’s what summoner is known for. I’m sorry but you people need to get over yourselves.

**Miemi** · 09-20-2021 10:38 AM