Summoner Needs to be buffed

[Lilyth]

b) difficulty is also subjective.

I normally take this stance as well... but in this case I have to say it's a very objective take that SMN's rotation is on pair in complexity with the Healers.

[ForteNightshade]

I have bad news for you they will never buff SMN enough to surpass RDM, rdm rotation is harder so higher dps is warranted.

If we're going to use this logic then Reaper should be the weakest melee. Not only does it boast the best utility among melee in Arcane Crest, it's incredibly easy to pick up and play even at a fairly decent level. Additionally, it has no odd optimization quirks like Samurai or suffer from animation lock like Dragoon.

And yet it's not only the best Melee but the best overall DPS job in the entire game. So the difficult logic simply doesn't work.

If physical ranged gets lower DPS because of mobility then so too should summoner.

Except the Range aren't competing against anyone else but themselves. You'll always take one of them whereas Summoner's DPS is so low, it's essentially worthless. There's simply zero reason for any group to even consider Summoner come Savage. Red Mage simply beats it at every category while Black Mage is better for speeds. Summoner has no niche or even reason to exist at its current level.

[MaelleRiou]

Except the Range aren't competing against anyone else but themselves. You'll always take one of them whereas Summoner's DPS is so low, it's essentially worthless. There's simply zero reason for any group to even consider Summoner come Savage. Red Mage simply beats it at every category while Black Mage is better for speeds. Summoner has no niche or even reason to exist at its current level.

Summoner DPS is very slightly lower than red mage. Summoner's mobility more than makes up the 200ish DPS difference.

[Easayia]

given summoners cast times are basically way quicker now its basically a ranged DPS so because more movement just like the others DPS loss should be an expected outcome.

[ForteNightshade]

Summoner DPS is very slightly lower than red mage. Summoner's mobility more than makes up the 200ish DPS difference.

Mobility rarely matters in this game. In fact, just look at the entirety of Eden. Not once was Range's free mobility a noteworthy advantage. At best, you could argue it made Black Smokers less annoying but all three Casters had no real issue with it. Meanwhile, you had mechanics like Towers in E7S and Light Rampant which would have been perfect to design around Range mobility. Instead, they pick DPS randomly, resulting in the Melee having to disengage, thus rendering any free mobility meaningless. Casters weren't hindered by either of these mechanics. Even TEA didn't have a single mechanic any Caster couldn't accomplish.

When you then factor in Insta-caster Raise potential and Magick Barrier, that added 200 DPS discrepancy is just insulting. Summoner simply can't compete with Red Mage and will be completely locked out of groups just like Ninja was in 5.0. Ironically, Ninja's looking for a repeat of that alongside Dragoon as both are completely outclassed by Reaper.

[Gallus]

Job complexity is never a factor, surprised so much people bring it up.

As for SMN itself, it should be more on par with RDM than it is now. You can't have RDM doing more damage + having virtually infinite raises (both extremely relevant) vs SMN being more...mobile...and easier, you guys can't be serious.

SMN should be doing the same damage as RDM, and at best, SMN's mobility being taxed should be understood in the form of RDM being able to chain raise.

[CKNovel]

Remember when everyone asked for a nerf of SMN during ShB.
They took months if not a year before nerfing it by a mere 50 potency, which made it remain among the best DPS, just below SAM and MNK.

The "mobility argument" was always flawed from the start. E8S was the most mobile tier and physical ranged did not shined, it was the casters who shined.

If the chart is like this, it's because SQEX decided so. I made my peace with SQEX balancing and SMN will probably get a DPS buff that will once again throw the logic of balancing to the trash can.
And of course be ready for the SMN main whining that they deserve that buff because they have 4 casts per minutes.

[Shurrikhan]

The "Ranged Tax" is a myth that needs to die because melees are capable of getting almost, if not a 100% uptime in fights and they have plenty of mobility tools to play with now.

Job difficulty shouldn't be a factor either.

Let's say two jobs have equal skill ceilings and output ceilings. If one nonetheless can get to where they do 95% of the theoretical maximum of their job with a quarter of the effort required to do so one most others, all you've done is made the job OP for all must the very highest end of players.

To say that job difficulty shouldn't be a factor whatsoever is just to, in practice, make the easiest jobs obligatory. If SMN puts out as much rDPS as a BLM and RDM, then you'd simply find BLMs increasingly barred from the caster slot for the sake of reliability and RDMs still discouraged unless the party expects their less calculable utilities (Magic Barrier and more than one instant rez per minute) will be of use.

There is no case by which "all jobs are equally competitive" at every skill level. You balance their maximum DPS (aka, balance for 'Max', as opposed to the 95th, 90th, or 80th percentiles), sure, but for jobs with greater ease of average play, that last step towards mastery should also be that much more demanding and consequential.


"Mobility tax", on the other hand, is not worth thinking about unless an entire expansion's worth of encounters designs mechanics as to be necessarily rDPS-taxing to all but the most mobile jobs at the time (and even that would only either make them overpowered up to the point they are contextually useful, as to highly encourage their being taken for X slots, and highly discourage their being taken on fights without such contexts or in excess of that number).

Outside of that, having unfettered mobility is simply to have one fewer possible area of difficulty/complexity and ought follow the same rules in balancing for a given likely percentile.

[ThorneDynasty]

Remember when everyone asked for a nerf of SMN during ShB.
They took months if not a year before nerfing it by a mere 50 potency, which made it remain among the best DPS, just below SAM and MNK.

The "mobility argument" was always flawed from the start. E8S was the most mobile tier and physical ranged did not shined, it was the casters who shined.

If the chart is like this, it's because SQEX decided so. I made my peace with SQEX balancing and SMN will probably get a DPS buff that will once again throw the logic of balancing to the trash can.
And of course be ready for the SMN main whining that they deserve that buff because they have 4 casts per minutes.

Honestly when you look at a trait like Enhanced Unmend you have to wonder if SE is hugely overvaluing mobility for some reason.

Other than that I honestly can't think of any other reason for ranged physical doing less damage than skill based balancing, as much as there's insistence they would never. Don't have to worry about uptime positioning, positionals or cast times, so less damage too I guess.

[CKNovel]

Let's say two jobs have equal skill ceilings and output ceilings. If one nonetheless can get to where they do 95% of the theoretical maximum of their job with a quarter of the effort required to do so one most others, all you've done is made the job OP for all must the very highest end of players.

Reverse it, you're forcing a ceiling on others because it's harder for a group.
That logic is the same a putting a blindfold on everyone because there is someone blind in the group.
In time, the naturally blind will find its mark while the artificially blind will struggle far more.
Plus, the group will always find a way to accomodate everyone (Melee uptime strats that always exists).

Think about it, running is easy, everyone can do it. Put one foot in front of the other but very fast.
Racing is more complex, you need to care about wether and take care of your car.

Does that mean you replace Usain Bolts medal with silver and that you cannot win Gold medals in "easy categories", using the argument that everyone can run? No, because he excels at running, he remains a world top athlete.
Complexity has nothing to do with the reward, if you excel at your job you should be correctly rewarded.

Yes, ranged should be right behind melees. But even during prog, it's quite rare they are in front of melees. And when it's the case, the problems most often comes from the melee in question.
Also see the E5S-E8S argument where mobility tax was debunked, I've yet to see a counter argument to that.