QoL Changes for Reworked SMN - An Opinion

[Spectrum]

I feel so-so about this.

Your proposed change for this minimal damage decrease is either going to be absolutely pointless

True, it would be minor in most situations, but similar to Bard's songs, the minor buffs add up in Savage content and in long fights. Maybe Carbuncle can cast a buff based on the last Arcanum summoned when Carbuncle returns to the field, like Ruby Light, Topaz Light, Emerald Light from FF9. Damage +1%, Damage taken -3%, Cast/Recast times -1% respectively? I just wouldn't want SMN to become a fully support job more than a DPS and I have a feeling YoshiP isn't planning on knocking BLM off the top caster DPS spot. It just feels weird that SMN doesn't really have a niche, with BLM and RDM both doing more DPS and RDM having far more utility. It's a difficult dilemma I suppose.

Ruin IV isn't pointless ... I think, this issue is rather related to Aetherflow

I do like that Ruin IV is AoE now, and that it is instant cast for times when you are repositioning before Phoenix/Bahamut are ready and can't gap fill with Ruin III while moving. I guess I just don't like that it feels out of place because the proc comes from Energy Drain and Ruin IV is on GCD instead of oGCD. I miss old Ruin II because it allowed for so much more mobility for full crit builds. I wish we could cast Ruin IV more often. Bringing back the (chance of) proc system on pet actions (or I guess Astral Flow now) would be nice. I like your idea for Aetherflow, it definitely needs something to spruce it up.

I'm just gonna ignore what you said about PVP
Crimson Cyclone is absolutely not too short. In fact, the range is longer than the dashes of the melee jobs.

I mentioned PvP version of Crimson Strike just because it is long ranged, which is what PvE version should be imo. Mainly because on top of being a caster and being relegated to being positioned on the outer edges of arenas for Savage content mechanics (unlike melee who get to stay at inner positions for uptime), we have a short window of time where we are allowed to use this high potency attack, so if we can't get into melee range within a reasonable time (choosing between delaying next summon to wait out mechanics to resolve so you can get into melee range or just moving onto next summon to keep DPS going while sitting in your spot for boss mechanics), it's actually a big DPS loss either way when Ifrit phase comes up during boss mechanics.

I agree the range of Crimson Cyclone is nice, but other jobs dash abilities can be saved for later, which is my biggest concern with Ifrit dash. It is such a high potency ability that if you can't use it during the ~20 second window before your next summon, you lose out on a lot of DPS because you can't hold it for later to for when it's safe to use.