Summoner - Why the new "buffs" are not working

[Aikaal]

I'll be completely honest, I knew the only thing Summoner was going to get were minor potency buffs. Because most complains on the forums have been; "Summoner doesn't do enough damage."

I will try to make a post that is the most respectful as possible because there issues on Summoner are far beyond just damage. To be completely fair, SMN wasn't the job that was gutted the worst. MCH got absolutely nothing. WHM mana issues were completely ignored also.

For those who aren't aware, here are the buffs SMN got

• Astral Impulse; +10 Potency (6 casts per window, 60 potency per 2 minutes)
• Ruby Rite; +20 Potency (2 casts per window, 40 potency. Double per 2 minutes)
• Foutain of Fire; +20 Potency (6 casts per window, 120 potency per 2 minutes)

We gained 220 potency per 2 minutes which is about 1% buff. Here why on paper it looks ok but on practice it doesn't work.

• Ruby Rite buff only pressures the SMN to swiftcast for DPS more. In progression, your group is likely to ask you to hold your swiftcast for raise so the buff is even lesser.
• Swiftcasting for DPS voids all raise support you have. Then you fight for just pure damage. Black Mage received a 4% buff on the patch. They were already better than SMN in term of damage and they got 4 times more potency.
• SMN and RDM is definitely closer now but it's just a matter that RDM is just more flexible than SMN.

I know a lot of you will like to say they are doing this because mobility taxe. This is wrong, I believe they are having struggles to balance jobs they do not know or play and it's quite obvious now.



This is theorized average DPS and SMN seems to be doing about the same damage than RDM but that's deceptive of the way they have built the savage fights.

• Fights have busy mechanic situations under buff windows now. Certain fights, desyncs and delay buff windows. This has a huge impact on SMN. Much more than any DPS in the game.
• P2S unsyncs your Bahamut/Phoenix entirely. Because your biggest DPS bursts are not under the buff window, you suddenly do less damage. That makes you worst than the theory.
• P4S also unsyncs your Baha/Phoe. I can't attest since I'm not there yet.
• P3S is really silly to optimize. Fortunately it works but right now, the big brain SMNs
  hold their Phoenix after the add phase and effectively only use Ruin III during the add phase. Because the community has opted to ignore the add phase for fflogs, this is how SMNs play. However, because the add phase is a scripted enrage timer, there is no merit in having too much DPS. I personally play inefficiently so Bahamut comes back on buff windows.

The reality is SMN is a straight line that the only option you have is to either speed it up for avoid damage loss from downtimes and invuln phases or to slow down your straight line to align your damage better. There is only so much you can slow down until it becomes a damage loss because Ruin III is just the worst spell in your kit.

Here what doesn't work;

• Elemental Summons are gated behind Summon Bahamut/Phoenix
• Searing Light & Radiant Aegis str gated behind Carbuncle
• Phoenix is gated behind Bahamut
• Everlasting Flight & Rekindle are gated behind Summon Phoenix

SE made an incredible simple and mobile caster. Yet, I never use my toolkit for the mobility but for the damage. What does that Ifrit Buff do to my rotation? Nothing. I'll still use Garuda first if my party if heavy on 2minute buffs. I'll still use Titan because it has the best damage. I'll always keep Ifrit for last because he provides with weaker damage which I'll have to deal with the mobility later. For those who wonder and say you should just Ifrit on better windows. I still have Ruin IV and a faster cast spell in form of a filler Ruin III to work around Ifrit. Ifrit is fine the way he is, however, there is just no excuse that Ifrit is pathetic compared to Titan; even after the buff.

Solutions? I knew the SMN issues were deeper than just damage but SE gave me the impression they handed panic buffs because they don't know how to handle the SMN situation and they may not have people in their dev team that play SMN at all. Otherwise, they'd have figured how terrible the fights are to play as SMN.

• Make Searing Light not gated behind Carbuncle. This was asked for Devotion and nothing has changed. You could do the same for Radiant Aegis although having 2 charges makes up for the caveat.
• Remove the restrictions from Summon Titan/Garuda/Ifrit that Summon Bahamut/Phoenix are required to have them. An oGCD button could work for that.
• Reskin raise so it feels like it comes from the powers of Phoenix. Instant cast, with a cooldown.
• Remove the restrictions of Rekindle and Everlasting Flight. Please let me be the master of when I want to use these abilities and not force me to use them on overhealing situation.
• Adjust the potencies so Bahamut actually does more damage than Phoenix. There is nothing that make sense in the lore that Phoenix should do more damage than Bahamut. Bahamut is destruction, Phoenix is flame and rebirth.
• Allow us to chose between Summon Phoenix and Bahamut. When you press Summon Bahamut, both summons are on CD for 60s. The Summoner gets a buff that makes the next opposite Summoner better. Similar to how Reaper positional works.

I think everybody can agree we're not asking immediate changes. But we do want a proper open dialogue with the dev team that acknowledges that SMN, while the rework has potential, is currently a failure in term of performance and flexibility. Please have a go and try your SMN in actual combat. You'll find yourself surprised that some of those complains are legitimate.

I will end by saying this isn't a post to buff my job further. Before buffing my performances, I would like you to fix my playstyle.

[Gruntler]

Yoshi P: "Please don't expect rotational changes or reworks in the 6.08 patch"

The community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWULCfJ2PGA

[CKNovel]

6.08 is only numbers.

Wait for 6.1 for bigger changes but lower your expectations.
Also I'm pretty sure someone in their team play SMN, at the minimum 5.0 SMN.

[Aikaal]

Yoshi P: "Please don't expect rotational changes or reworks in the 6.08 patch"

The community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWULCfJ2PGA

Yeahhh, and they gave 4% on BLm that was already stronger than SMN who got 1% so *shrug*

They also gave Machinist 0.2%, they are purepower and doing, on average 1k less than BLM. They have 4% to BLM and 0.2% to MCH... So questioning them is still valid because it doesn't make sense.

[Sunako]

"Searing Light & Radiant Aegis str gated behind Carbuncle"

Radiant Aegis is completely fine with 30 sec duration. I have played summoner over 8 years and this is skill is actually extremely valuable during prog. Summoner was always the first person who died in the raid if some mitigation/heal was missing. Now I can save myself for using it for every big aoe regardless do I need it or not.

Searing Ligth however is really annoying to use, because some mechanics not allow you to and delaying few globals for it is pretty big dps loss. In hesperos 2 rank1 summoner (before patch) was stacking spell speed so you don't have to delay rotation. Fight does not even have downtime.
If you wanna check akh morn window looks like this

[BaconBits]

Yet another victory for BLM.

[Aikaal]

"Searing Light & Radiant Aegis str gated behind Carbuncle"

Radiant Aegis is completely fine with 30 sec duration. I have played summoner over 8 years and this is skill is actually extremely valuable during prog. Summoner was always the first person who died in the raid if some mitigation/heal was missing. Now I can save myself for using it for every big aoe regardless do I need it or not.

Searing Ligth however is really annoying to use, because some mechanics not allow you to and delaying few globals for it is pretty big dps loss. In hesperos 2 rank1 summoner (before patch) was stacking spell speed so you don't have to delay rotation. Fight does not even have downtime.
If you wanna check akh morn window looks like this

Yeah, I've figured full spell speed could fix the unsync issue, I'm raiding casually so I don't go for spell speed but its pretty bs if the best way is to stack speed imho lol.

Also, for those who say it was a patch just for number. Fair point; however,

Yet another victory for BLM.

This is not a firepower boost, this is quality of life. Probably for you, main black mages. I've also stated that fixing the rotation isn't something I expect right away nor the community should expect. But I do believe we have the right to have a discussion with the dev team, have them address the issue. They've yet to mention anything suggesting SMN rotation is fine right now which it is not.

PLD and BLM was the great winner second was DNC. Phys Ranged is still underperforming however. They absolutely gutted Machinist mains and quite frankly, they've further encouraged Summoners to do silly strategies like only casting Ruin III on adds phase of P3S now that Phoenix is even stronger.

I also want to point out that, while I'm sure it isn't the case. It sure does feel the dev favor specific jobs. BLM didn't need that much and yet, they gained a massive 4% Firepower boost.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Yeah the buffs are nice and at least smn is closer to rdm now in terms of dps but smn problems are mostly rotation problems. I fully admit after your last thread about the state of the casters I switched over to rdm for my group. I love it just because I get to choose when to use my burst windows. P2S has been much better since I made the switch and only wish smn had this same flexibility in its kit. Plus learning a new job has been really refreshing to boot XD Either way, I do hope in 6.1 we see some QoL changes to smn to help it in fights with downtime, etc. One quick solution I thought the devs could do just to help realign brust windows is give the demi summon button the 2nd charge. That way doing downtime you not forced to use baha or phy right before like in p2s and save up a 2nd demi during the downtime. Most it affects is the smn's opener where you open up with both baha and phy within the first 30secs of the fight. I don't know just a quick solution I thought of.

[Rolder50]

The BLM buff was the most perplexing part of the patch. I guess being Yoshi-Ps preferred job really pays off huh?

[MrJPtheAssassin]

The BLM buff was the most perplexing part of the patch. I guess being Yoshi-Ps preferred job really pays off huh?

The blm buffs were mostly just to get it above rpr since they didn't want to nerf rpr at all. In fact, most of the buff we saw to melee jobs and selfless jobs was supposed to do that but seems by the theorized list only blm and mnk were pushed above rpr. Rpr imo is still overturned for the amount of uility it brings into a party and I really think they going to have to nerf it at some point.