Smn Rework Suggestions After LL

[Exodus-E]

Hell, they couldn't even be bothered to give players a Ramuh, Leviathan, or Shiva stance even though they told us 7 years ago we would see those pets err summons.

Indeed.
Which is why I'm still hopeful that they'll (finally) implement proper Egi glamours during 6.X.
It could be extended to change our current gemstones (thus, what pseudo-Primal we actually summon, like the remaining ARR ones).

[Rika007]

I noticed that energy Drain seems to be on a minute long cool down but we still only get two stacks of aetherflow from it. This should be reconsidered. With a lot more instant casts it seems and summoner remaining mobile keeping more oGCD's is very important, so I would suggest keeping the cool down on it at 30 seconds to keep the job feeling busy.

Retro Edit: Now that I see that Ruin 4 procs only ONCE off of aether flow and that there is no on call OGCD to get the opener moving, I would say this is another thing that needs to be re-considered. Right now based on what we saw from Yoshi's play through, there will be a lot of clipping in the summoner opener with trying to get out everything as you ramp to bahamut. Ruin 4 being tied to a minute long cool down on energy drain doesn't seem like the best idea. Maybe making it a charged action would work better.

[MartaDemireux]

Honestly, I can't ask for much as this change is extremely close to what I wanted a year ago:

At this point I really want the egis to go away and the demi system expanded on. Have one demi path for AoE and one demi path for ST.

Carbuncle could be the initial demi that starts the ramp up to Bahamut (AoE) and Phoenix (ST). There could be a midway demi for each path as well. Perhaps there could be 3 midway demis per path (grouped by umbral and astral elements) and which one you summon is randomly pulled from available summons (ST (Garuda/Ramuh/Ifrit) VS AoE (Titan/Leviathan/Shiva)) and just visually different like how Eos and Selene are now. Or perhaps go all out on the demi system and go Carbuncle > Ifrit > Garuda > Ramuh > Phoenix / Carbuncle > Titan > Leviathan > Shiva > Bahamut.

But of course all demis would need demi appropriate appearances. And Carbuncle glamours could stay the same or go the way of Eos/Selene and have 3 spells where you only set one of them to bar.

I'd also like their core kit reworked to feature non-core primal animations. Like Odin could come and do Festers attack equivalent. GKMM could be Banes equivalent. Etc.

But I would still like some other side summon representation. I also think they could add reskins of Garuda (Leviathan puddles), Titan (Shiva kicks/swords/bows), and Ifrit (Ramuh lightning casts) that are activated after Phoenix to balance out the 6 elements.

[Dyvid]

Honestly this is just one giant bowl full of missed opportunities.

Let's talk about DoTs first:
* Years ago someone made a good suggestion that you should change DoTs cast animation from Spells to Summons. For example when you cast Miasma, Bismarck would attack with a splash bubble effect. Bio would summon Diablos sending a Demi Blob at the target. This would make players feel like they are summoning without removing anything from the job.
* What is the point of Tri-D, Bane, or Fester now?

Let's talk about Summon Stance dancing:
* Why oh why didn't they just change the Egi into a primal for 15s like when Bahamut or Phoenix is summoned, only smaller say the size of a Hume. Literally what people have been asking for since 2.0.
* The opener should be Aetherflow that charges the three element stances, going through all three stance unlocks Demi phase.
* None of the player casted spells shown have any relation to what abilities and spells the Primals use. Feather rain, Plume, Landslide? Feels more like a Geomancer than Summoner.
* Should have made it following the Elemental Wheel. Going the correct order would add a damage buff. For example: Garuda > Ifrit > Shiva. Ramuh > Titan > Leviathan.
* Speaking of Ramuh, Shiva, Leviathan; where are they?! You could have made the 2 sets equaling all 6 primals? Garuda - Ifrit - Shiva -> Bahamut; Ramuh - Titan - Leviathan -> Phoenix.

How about pets:
* Are they still a thing or just glorified minions?
* Do Egi's still have Egi Assault or just set to boring auto attack?
* Did you fix the ghosting issue with Demi or are they still going to miss commands because of movement?

This is going to be one odd rotation for a 120s timer. Demi's are set to 15s while Stances are 30s. Demi > Stance > Stance > Stance > Demi (15s, 30s, 30s, 30s, 15s)? Just would make more sense to me for a Stance > Stance > Stance > Demi > Stance > Stance > Stance > Demi (15s + 15s +15s = Demi 15s) > (15s + 15s + 15s = Demi 15s).

[Exodus-E]

* Speaking of Ramuh, Shiva, Leviathan; where are they?! You could have made the 2 sets equaling all 6 primals? Garuda - Ifrit - Shiva -> Bahamut; Ramuh - Titan - Leviathan -> Phoenix.

I figured that if they ever get to finish development on proper Egi glamours, they could "extend" its functionality to that gemstone phase (Leviathan Sapphire? Ramuh Amethyst? Shiva Diamond?).

How about pets:
* Are they still a thing or just glorified minions?
* Do Egi's still have Egi Assault or just set to boring auto attack?

They're still a thing (and they can be glamoured, as ever).
But from what I've seen/heard, it seems they're just there to serve as "focus" for SMN's pet related skills (like that barrier, that "aetherpact" buff and the Trance/Demi phases).
Thus, they'll no longer auto-attack.

[Jirah]

The job looks like Ruin spamming with Ogcd “summons” could be wrong but wouldn’t be the second time idiots buy into superficial aesthetics

[AngeliouxRein]

lol.. yeah I can’t lie that I was just as shook as other SMN mains but it didn’t take long for my brain to ask “did you notice the lack of summon management?”..

The way we handled bahamut and Phoenix is a 100% what I wanted but the other part (yes, they did an epic job on animations and all) of us just “summoning” stuff has my concern. It’s just primal coming and going and then we go into our little rotation until we get another demi. Rinse and repeat. It’ll be fun at first but it honestly might get boring later on. I can’t hate on SMN (my genuine interest is high), just feeling a bit concerned.

[Roda]

The job looks like Ruin spamming with Ogcd “summons” could be wrong but wouldn’t be the second time idiots buy into superficial aesthetics

those "summons" are gcds.

Garuda has 1 instant cast gcd, and 1 casted gcd.
Titan has 1 instant cast gcd, and 1 ogcd.
Ifrit has 1 casted gcd, and 2 instant gcds in a chain

That's all we've seen, I THINK there's a hidden skill that he didn't have on his bar.

[rewd]

This seems like such a half-assed rework and it's sad.

First of all, the problem of SMN having more identities still persists. What are we now? Channelers? Trance mages? Geomancers? Elementalists? Pokemon trainers?
Why do we summon creatures that leave after a big attack, creatures that stay with us for a while and a creature that stays with us until we tell it to get lost? A creature that can only cast a buff and a shield and mainly looks menacingly at the enemy, while we exercise wind, fire and earth magic?

Aetherflow managed to 1) still be in the game 2) still be bloated for no reason (how did Energy Siphon and Painflare managed to survive?) 3) completely disconnected from everything. Ruin IV is even worse. What was a flexible tool and an important part of SMN's kit, is now just a GCD every minute.

5.X SMN is very mobile, but movement doesn't come for free and you still have to correctly manage Assaults and Ruin procs. Now, we have even more instacasts than we can possibly use. On top of that, we can also use Ruin III to weave pretty much every time we want... But where are the oGCDs to weave?

Demis lost some interaction with the player and now the only thing that makes them different from LS and Queen is Enkindle. The silver lining is that Bahamut phase looks visually cooler and that Phoenix got a new skill, which seems to be a party heal. Hopefully it's worth using and an oGCD.

The primals phases are quite disappointing. The model themselves and the ultimate moves are very cool, what comes afterwards not so much. Garuda and Titan look very basic with some generic windballs and rocks. Ifrit on the other hand looks more interesting, but that's it.

All in all, while looking good, this rework just seems like a pretty big downgrade to me. I love SMN because it's a pretty active job with a lot to manage and quite versatile. I don't really see much of it, if at all, in the new version.

I feel like they could have tried to implement current elements in the 6.0 version, like linking Garuda to your DoTs again. One skill could have applied DoTs, another skill could have spread them across targets. This way, DoTs would still be part of the job but they wouldn't be a core mechanic (think of NIN's Shadow Fang). It would have kept the fun elements of putting DoTs on everything in dungeons and it would have kept room for optimization in raids during add phases. Lastly, it would have added more oomph to Garuda. Add something similar to Ifrit and Titan and this rework would have looked much better to me.

They took a lot without giving anything in return. In a way it's poetic, since it's what happened to SCH in Shadowbringers. Was it just a matter of time for SMN?

[Thatusernameistaken]

So am I the only one who thinks the rework is fine? A LOT of people have suggested what we saw in the JAT and a lot of responses in this thread amount to "well yes, but actually no". As.a SMN player I don't have any issues with what I saw, except hoping the pet jank has been addressed.