Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Dahlinea]

SCH is really the only case of this in that they can, in theory, spam Ruin 2 for an entire fight if they need to for the movement, at an ability cost no greater than Broil IV (MP wise), but the cost in lost damage is significant and so it's not really VIABLE.

That's called "learned and grow within your job" and old SMN had that. You had to maximaze the use of Ruin III and work around uses of Ruin II and Ruin IV. And for record, EW SMN has none of this. You have a set amount of spells you can cast, you can't try to improve on that, there's simply no way.

Generally speaking, "meaningful choices" are short term ones...

And here you're just bending the the term for your own convenience. I won't even bother. You know what I meant by having free choice on spells if you played old SMN.

You aren't giving a "meaningful choice that matters". You're giving an example of optimal gameplay, which isn't a choice. In your above example, it would never be a meaningful choice to choose Garduda during low movement phases because it would (presumably) be suboptimal to using Ifrit, and likewise, for movent, using Ifrit wouldn't be a choice at all.

That is far from the truth. You're given player the choice to use their spells as they see fit and improve their usage. You can play it safe or can go ahead and try to get more damage out of it. That is basically creating a simple improvement environment for the job that EW SMN lacks completely.

Also, the last sentence of your first paragraph isn't even right: "Also 'meaningful choices that matter' means that if you choose another approach to the rotation the result will be different" - use Garuda on SMN during high movement. Now use Ifrit on SMN during high movement. Tell me you didn't get a different result.

Most fights resolve those "high movements" phases quickly enough that using Swiftcast with Ifrit lets you position well enough to hard cast the next. Ifrit is the only I would arguably say you have to do a workaround with little losses. Also, Ifrit alone is a small portion of the kit, if we accept you have to think about it to use it, what you have more? The Garuda ground AoE that does mediocre damage? Everything else is just going on-rails.

And just to contrast a little bit. In most fights, you see yourself sitting in the same place for some time, especially if you position yourself well, more time than you have to use your Ifrit hard casts usually. As a resul,t you keep there in the same place casting insta spells when instead we could have the freedom to choose what type of spells to use and use hard cast during those times.

SMN is a special case since Old SMN and New SMN both had/have this feature going for them. Old SMN had several GCD instants it could move around flexibly, like 4 Ruin IVs over the full 2 min cycle, a Bio natural refresh, and within 30 seconds of window, Egi-Assaults. New SMN does this same thing at 3 decision points per minute of you choosing Ifrit, Garuda, or Titan, Ruin IV/Swiftcast use, and even within Ifrit and Garuda as each has something requiring a cast (1 for Garuda, 2 for Ifrit) and the other choice that consist of instant casts (gap closer/slam for Ifrit are both instant and Garuda's Gemshines are instant), and for Ifrit specifically, depending on if movement is needed (gapcloser/slam allows movement) or if disengage is needed (Gemshine at range where charge/slam is obviously not). So even WITHIN the sub-phases, there's choice on how you order your rotation.

And this is literally like day and night between these two jobs. You try to make as if they work on the same principle but that's just false argument. I played enough of both versions to know how both works.

New SMN is fine, the problem is that Old SMN was removed from the game. They were/are both good Jobs in their own rights, and I genuinely wish they would have taken Old SMN's rotation and ported it to Green Mage or something, add a new Caster Job so that both Old SMN and New SMN would exist side by side. That'd honestly be my preference. Egi-Assaults were just two flavors of GCD, so they didn't exactly REQUIRE a pet, old Bahamut worked somewhat like old Hypercharge/Wildfire with you slamming everything you could into his window of action, and both FBT and DWT made your filler spell instant and refreshed a key oGCD (Tri-Disaster to oGCD apply both your DoTs). Not one of those things REQUIRES a pet or summon function, so converting that into Green Mage would have been thematic child's play. Free fourth Caster Job and I still have no idea why the Devs didn't do it, considering Old SMN ALREADY adhered to the 2 min meta, so the Kit itself would transfer perfectly fine into EW...

The rework IS NOT ALRIGHT. It has a serious problem with the rigidity of the rotation and how braindead it is.
Even if all this talk about old and new SMN is gone, it doesn’t change the fact EW SMN is very underwhelming at its core and need serious changes to be a job that has a proper skill floor entry for new players and a good skill ceiling for players to improve within the job.