Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[ZiraZ]

SMN is absolutely the #1 choice for supports that want to dps but have never done it before or have next to zero experience, I was just facetious about quitting healing or tanking, there could just be no spots left for them or they want to do non-standard comps. You want to prog ultimates fast in pf? Play a support, in the rare occurrence those are taken then SMN autopilot baby.
Being able to perform adequately without even looking at a guide, requiring zero experience, casts?, zero knowledge of cooldown management, MP management, 2min sync, while being extremely tanky is SMNs bread and butter. It really is just a healer without having to worry about keeping people alive.

[ty_taurus]

Counterpoint: why are they all flocking to SMN which is essentially the same boring gameplay? Why the most played healer by far has always consistently been WhM, the most boring of them all? Why every time something gets dumbed down to oblivion, the playing rates dramatically increase?

( the questions are rhetorical )

I imagine the jobs we'd see in influx of would be red mage and dancer the most. Not because they're easy, but because they offer a taste of support-oriented gameplay. Red Mage has Magick Barrier and can instant raise in a pinch, and Dancer has Curing Waltz, Shield Samba, and Improvisation.

[Deceptus]

I refuse to believe that the SMN bloated numbers of players is due to ex healers picking a new job... But who knows.

Easy, intuitive, hard to F* up rotation that does decent DPS. It's not hard to figure out why casuals flock to it.

[ForsakenRoe]

Wow it's been a while since I made the mistake of shouting into the void (here in the EN forums)

Also waiting for media tour info/job action trailer to see what is going on with healers. I've been progging TOP as a Phys Ranged and, in a shocking turn of events, it's fun to have a rotation instead of 'press 1 until boss die'. Who knew? Not SE if the past 4 years are anything to go by, so if nothing seems to change for the healer role (or they say they'll 'try' something that clearly won't work), I'll very likely be dropping the role come 7.0, maybe I'll look at being a Tank main like SB, if they bring back some of the old elements of Tank gameplay like 'position the boss appropriately for the mechanic to allow for more uptime'. Or maybe I'll continue being a Phys Ranged, where I get to 'support' the team (part of the reason I want to enjoy Healer), but with the added bonus of having actual gameplay. Doubly so since there's going to be so many Viper and Picto one-tricks, so chances are there will be quite a shortage of Phys Ranged in the PF

As for SMN, my opinion is simply that it's the right design at the wrong time. What we have now is perfect gameplay and kit... for Stormblood. If this rework was done then, and we had SHB and EW add 2 expansions worth of extra stuff to it, it'd be a much more solid gameplay experience. My main gripe with it is that we empower Rites with the primal powers, but they're all just... X Rite, they have varying cast times (or lack thereof) and potencies, but there's nothing that really sets one as being 'this one is Garuda themed' other than the colour of the VFX. You could colour all of them purple, darkblue and skyblue and say 'look, Ramuh/Levi/Shiva Rites!' What I would have preferred to see is that, upon summoning the demiprimal, we gain a physical aspect of its form, Ifrit's claws (for the melee attack), Titan's fists, and Garuda's wings. I also don't know why all of the 'Rites' had to be how the rotation is, when we could have had eg Titan's 'chunk of rotation' be Landslides and Mountain Buster (tableflip), still allowing us to cast from range but thematically more Titan than 'floating rocks appear', or Ifrit's being that we punch the ground to cause Eruptions on the enemy instead of Ruby Rite. IDK SMN just feels like a case of 'right direction, but needs to go back in the oven for a bit', and by that I mean it needs 2 expansions worth of extra stuff, plus the extra stuff of DT. Doesn't help that half of the animations I'd like to see on SMN's kit, and would fit with SMN's kit, have been stolen by BLU

See you all when any new info drops for another round of 'SE has no clue what they're doing' doomposting

[rawker]

But they started it as a pet job, alongside SCH. They drew in players that liked the playstyle. Had issues and hoped for improvement, but what did they do... they gut it out.

That's something a lot of players here will never understand.

[Valence]

Easy, intuitive, hard to F* up rotation that does decent DPS. It's not hard to figure out why casuals flock to it.

ex healers or support flocking to it =/= casuals flocking to it.

Also it's not just casuals, the raiding numbers are there to show for it.

As for SMN, my opinion is simply that it's the right design at the wrong time. What we have now is perfect gameplay and kit... for Stormblood. If this rework was done then, and we had SHB and EW add 2 expansions worth of extra stuff to it, it'd be a much more solid gameplay experience.

MCH begs to disagree, nothing has changed since the rework. I do not trust SE anymore to wipe out a job to a dumbed down clean slate and then count on them to improve upon that base the next expansion.

[Aravell]

ex healers or support flocking to it =/= casuals flocking to it.

Also it's not just casuals, the raiding numbers are there to show for it.

It's because SMN was built with mobility in mind. It makes it so much easier to prog savage/ultimates if you can just run to your spot directly instead if thinking about slidecasting.

It's also worth mentioning that SMN was just straight up better than RDM in everything except chain-ressing for about 3 patches.

[Valence]

Yes, the point I was trying to make is that I fundamentally disagree with the fact that SMN somehow is the dumping ground of washed out support and healer players that don't want to deal with complex rotations. I do feel it's indicative of what the majority of the playerbase actually wants, and they don't like job constraints.

And it depresses me.

[Aravell]

Yes, the point I was trying to make is that I fundamentally disagree with the fact that SMN somehow is the dumping ground of washed out support and healer players that don't want to deal with complex rotations. I do feel it's indicative of what the majority of the playerbase actually wants, and they don't like job constraints.

And it depresses me.

Well, the general playerbase enjoys current WAR. That tells you all you need to know, really.

[ty_taurus]

What it boils down to with warrior and summoner isn’t that the average player feels that their job design is interesting or engaging, because the average player is not playing FFXIV for the combat system, and that’s the key distinguishing factor. Most people are here for the story and the aesthetic. Warrior and summoner just happen to be the paths of least resistance to experience those. It also helps that both are level 1 jobs. You don’t need to learn anything new at a later level like with red mage or dancer.

I just don’t think that’s a compelling argument for restricting jobs to that level. Because the average player doesn’t need a hyper simplistic job to get through all the core content of FFXIV. That same group of players had little difficulty getting through Heavensward core content despite jobs being a lot more technical. That’s why we should be seeking a happy medium where each job offers something to the players that are looking to engage with the game’s combat system at its level while still making it easy for the person not interested in the combat system to still cruise through core content smoothly. You know, what we had before Shadowbringers anyway.