Summoner rework is a huge dissapointment

[Anvaire]

I'm not going to advocate for DoTs to come back, I'd rather the next caster be a DoT focussed one, but come on synergy? You know what doesn't have synergy? Every single ability in the 6.0 SMN's tool kit. Searing light is the only thing that has any kind of impact on any other ability and it's just a raidbuff. DoTs in every iteration of SMN had more synergy with the kit than any ability now.

They might not have any synergy, but they do at least feel part of a whole design and not just tapped on. There is a clear resonance between all the abilities as they are intrinsically tied to whichever summon phase that role happens to be in. With dots, the only thing they really did was interact with fester and bane, but even then it was just tapped on when the rest of 5.0 class was focued on Trance and Demis.

Adding dots to current summoner, unless they were interwoven within a specific summons kit, would feel like a band aid, arguably one that wont go anywhere near to resolving the issues the class has. 6.0 summoners issue is not in its design philosophy, that in itself is really good. The issue lies in the application. The role feels overtly rigid and has little optimization opportnity. In a sense its very similiar to Black Mage, in that the rotational aspects are relatively simple. The issue is that where blackmage has a lot of scope for optimisation as and when required. Summoner, lacks those. If they can add some flexability into the role and diversify the primal GCD and Abilities to make them feel diverse enough that you arent just pressing the same button, then the class would be pretty solid. Its not another rework thats needed its small mechanical adjustments.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

snip

Personally, I don't want them to do a completely new rework for smn just because I have really have no faith they nail it down even with another rework. I rather they continue to work on this version of smn and make it feel more compete and rewarding. I like the core idea of using different summons thought out the rotation and rather see them improve upon those systems. That is the reason I say this smn has a decent base, I think it does have the potential of being better and having more. But hey if you rather see them throw everything out the window and start over so be it but I can tell you, you most likely be disappointed again with another whole rework since they will most likely just rush that one also. I think it is better for them to set up a base and continue work on it moving forward, kinda like they did with mnk in the middle of ShB and you see how that is working out. Also, remember smn HAD to be reworked since as Yoshi p said old smn was at a breaking point bc of old systems. So who knows this smn could be just a placeholder so they can continue to work on making it better. Am I happy with this smn overall? No, I do wish it had more flexibility and had more decision making but I still think it's a decent place to start. Only time will tell where smn goes from here.

[Lilyth]

Personally I don't expect much from 6.1, apart from fixes on carbuncles buff/shield

maybe a cooldown réduction for energy drain/siphon 60s-> 30s
with potency adjustement.

and maybe the r4 stack return for more flexibility .

Tbh they will just slap another 20 potency on FoF lul. This will calm the masses.

[dinnertime]

SMN doesn't need another full rework, but rework the actions it already has. SMN gets reworked every expansion and I'm honestly sick and tired of it.

This one and Shadowbringers SMN (before 5.1) is probably the worst reworks I've experienced.

[Dahlinea]

We still have DoTs. They are called Bahamut and Phoenix now :\

[Aikaal]

I do think the SMN rework is a step forward but got 2 steps back. it definitely they way to go to get more players to play it casually. Casual SMN feels completely fine because even MNK rework is pretty simple. The lack of current damage is not something unique to SMN, RDM also lacks damage right now.

There isn't much thinking as SMN, it's rather simple but the main concern of hate I personally have when I play this job is whenever I press "Summon X", I can only use "X Primal abilities" So many support abilities are restricted this way, Radiant Aegis, Searing Light, Everlasting Flight and Rekindle. Does it make sense? Yeah. Does the gameplay feels good? No. I always overheal my Phoenix heals. The worst restriction imho is the requirement of Summon Bahamut/Phoenix to allow Summon T/G/I. Just... explain me why couldn't we have got a GCD or oGCD with 2 charges at 60s CD that get reduce from sps (like Bahamut and Phoenix) which is the enabler of those elemental summons. It would at least fix having to chose between drifting Bahamut for 11s or just unsync Bahamut with buff windows in P2S. I don't really know why they've made it so you have to Summon Bahamut first and not Phoenix. Why are those the same button? There's multiple instances where you could put Summon Phoenix and Bahamut on a shared CD and have it similar to RPR where using Phoenix would give a buff to Bahamut on the next cast.

I believe if we were given this, it would make the rework a lot better because my main concern isn't damage, it's gameplay. I just feel like a driver who can only drive slower or faster in order to optimize the red light stops.

Personally, I see a ton of threads (I made one), if theres a lot of people making those with concerns, that,s because people are genuine when it feels SMN is wrong. That along with the cold silence of the dev team about how they think about SMN doesn't help at all. It would have been great to explain the 6.08 balances and why they were thinking that way. It'd be nice if they could elaborate later on but so far, absolutely nothing.

We still have DoTs. They are called Bahamut and Phoenix now :\

Say hi to Garuda's Slipstream! a DoT that you can get bamboozled if the boss is moved like Doton.

[dinnertime]

To be honest what really held back SMN for years was the pet actions and pet response. While the elemental attunements and favors need some work, I think it's a very good alternative to the now-lost pet actions. All they had to do was gave you, the caster, those abilities to execute instead. No more waiting for your pet to execute them.

...But they went a little too far and stripped so many other things. It's very unnecessary. Still hoping they look back into SB SMN and revert Aetherflow into something you spend to build up into summoning Bahamut/Phoenix.

[Dahlinea]

...But they went a little too far and stripped so many other things. It's very unnecessary. Still hoping they look back into SB SMN and revert Aetherflow into something you spend to build up into summoning Bahamut/Phoenix.

This is spot on. If you compare current SMN and 5.x SMN, you see the rework is just a lot of trivializations of the previous SMN mechanics.

- Removing DoTs made Fester potency standalone.
- Merged DWT with Summon Bahamut, no more Ruin II as it used to be, free Ruin IV's (now named Astral Impulse) and Bahamut auto attacks. Merging was fine but Astral Impulse being "free" combined with no Ruin II and Bahamut auto makes that phase extremely basic (same for Phoenix).
- Garuda, Titan and Ifrit replaced that preparation phase we had between Bahamut phases to keep dps up and gather Further Ruin stacks. But now we don't have to manage anything, just raw damage.

We can't deny that the visuals are good and we have more summons at hand now but the rework feels unfinished in gameplay department, rushed at some point.



On a more personal note, something that really bugs me about SMN is the fact that you have to use Bahamut/Phoenix to access G/I/T when it would make more sense to be the other way around. Even the gems near the gauge feels like it would make more sense if they filled as you used G/I/T and when the 3 are filled you get access to Bahamut/Phoenix.
I wonder if one of the reasons for this is to keep Bahamut as the opener like it was before, though stripped of everything else.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

On a more personal note, something that really bugs me about SMN is the fact that you have to use Bahamut/Phoenix to access G/I/T when it would make more sense to be the other way around. Even the gems near the gauge feels like it would make more sense if they filled as you used G/I/T and when the 3 are filled you get access to Bahamut/Phoenix.
I wonder if one of the reasons for this is to keep Bahamut as the opener like it was before, though stripped of everything else.

I think that is why they did that, to have Bahamut in our opener since it is our burst phase but they could have just given smn a 120s button that just gave you the three gems to summon a demi for free(like manafication or amplifer). I like the idea of going through the element summons to get to the demi a lot better than just having demis on a timer.

[Bacillus]

Carbuncle must go, i need both Searing Light and Radiant Aegis not being dependable of carbuncle.

Put it as an arcanist summon, as a glamour for elemental summons, i dont care, but it needs to go.

Also i cant understand whats behind the Soul drain fester combo, no synergies, nothing, plain bad, leave a dot at least?

I really think that we need a Dot, a single one, everyone has a Dot.