Summoner Ifrite dash needs a rework badly!

[Renathras]

What a load of mushroomfeed. It’s literally something you need to plan around, how is that anything other than the skill floor? Should I claim that bahanix needs to give seven stacks of ruin3 because it’s possible to not press it enough? Should I claim that not being careful enough with your gauge management, leading you to be unable to use upheaval or kaiten when needed is a job flaw? (The answer is no if you’re not good at reading subtext)

Primal rend

I meant which of Bahamut/Ruin 3, Upheaval, or Kaiten is an animation lock.

You have exactly one, Primal Rend, which has a 30 second window it can be used in, and can be used anytime under the 2 min raid buff window when aligning it, and is naturally aligned to it based in Inner Release's CD, which has no preconditions (no gauge requirement to use it or etc) and is naturally aligned with all burst windows by using it on CD after the opener. When you use Inner Release, if it's a bad time to use Primal Rend, you can push it as much as 30 seconds. That is, Primal Rend is arguably far more flexible than Crimson Strike is. Oh, and WAR has 3 other gap closers that are oGCD and not tied to anything other than a natural CD, meaning they can be held and used when needed without requiring any part of the rotation. WAR has the most gapclosers in the game, and the most flexibility in their use.

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EDIT: Yes, you can argue that you can hold Ifrit's Favor for up to 30 seconds as well, but only if you actively stop your overall rotation (don't use any additional Summons or Demis), while WAR can chug along its rotation happy as you please until it finds a good time to slot in Primal Rend.

[fulminating]

Oh good you're already aware that you have ~3 + ~3 + ~2.5 + ~2.5 seconds you can shuffle the gap closer around in, and since you're not trying to stuff it under raid buffs you have even more flexibility. There has to be some very compelling reason to turn a 50k primal rend into a 35k one, so the vast majority of the time it's going to be used in the buff overlap. Odd minutes you have more flexibility, but also nothing happens because they put all the mechanics on the even burst window for artificial difficulty. I'm also going to disagree with you a bit on the onslaughts, under ideal circumstances it's 3 per even minute/1 per odd which doesn't leave as much flexibility as it initially sounds like. I'm not going to pretend to like that it's no longer on the gauge though, a change which has reduced the amount of planning required.

I think I'll also disagree on warrior having the most gap closers- that award either goes to dragoon (2x spineshatter, dragonfire, stargazer and I'm counting high jump too because you can snapshot the boss's pbaoes with it) or blue mage with a really weird loadout (flying frenzy as filler, j-kick).

[Renathras]

...

I noted you have ONE example, which isn't any of the things you actually mentioned in your initial post. Also, 11 sec << 30 sec. AND some people HAVE complained about Primal Rend. AND Primal Rend is on a MELEE RANGE JOB. SMN has exactly one melee range attack. WAR has exactly one non-melee attack. Moreover, the raid buff window is typically around 15 seconds, which is still more than 11 seconds.

And BLU isn't a real Job. DRG...we'll call it a draw?

Point still stands: It's a weird ability on a caster that is on the GCD when the only other Job you immediately could think of that shares that trait is a Tank, a melee range Job, and even it has MORE flexibility on when to use it than SMN does.

If it was an oGCD and not part of a 1-2 combo, we wouldn't even be discussing it. In general, I feel it's odd that in a game with magic, we only have one Caster that does not engage with melee range - BLM. Every other Job in the game that isn't BRD, MCH, or AST has melee or near-melee range abilities, which is honestly just weird. But SMN's is a forced part of its rotation while others have a good deal more flexibility.

AT BEST, it's a "weird" design decision.