Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[ty_taurus]

I get what you mean. The time I had my most fun with SMN was by the end of Heavensward and during Stormblood. If we compare ShB SMN with SB SMN I completely agree that SB was better. It was a shame the Egis didn't work because their abilities were nice. Rouse, Radiant Shield, Earthen Ward, Contagion... I miss those.

I proposed something like that and other things in another thread about future hopes of caster. It was like that about I/G/T filling the gem gauge, the difference is that instead of Bahamut/Phoenix it would give access to a repurposed Tri-disaster ability and expend all gems after using it and reset the summons (or shift, if more summons are added). There I decoupled the 3 summons from Bahamut/Phoenix but it could work as gathering the gems to summons the big ones and makes more sense in this order.

I'd say I prefer this SMN over ShB SMN, but that comes with a caveat. As I mentioned, I like the direction of this SMN, but not the execution, and I think what makes me like this iteration more than the last is that I have more hope for its potential and too much distain for how disconnected Aetherflow and Egis were from the actual act of summoning from ShB, but that's also not a very fair take--to like something for what it might be vs what it actively was.

This SMN is an incomplete puzzle, and a part of that may very well have been intentional. There is a lot of room to build on this SMN over the next 10 years without running into another design ceiling. The garden was overgrown, and the solution was the gut it, then replant only half the garden. On some level, it makes sense, but they could've left the DoTs and old Tri-Disaster, and with a little tweaking to the current arrangement, it may have felt more complete, even if still inflexible with the summons as they are right now. Because even if they don't fit into the future picture, you can always remove them when you're ready to replace them with something more in line with the job's new direction. That's how I foresee Aetherflow going.

I have a few ideas for things that we might see in the coming expansions. Something others have brought up is having Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva replace Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda for one use each after summoning Bahamut or Phoenix perhaps, so you'd have a rotation of say Baha > Levi > Ramuh > Shiva > Phoenix > Titan > Ifrit > Garuda > Repeat, or something. Frankly, I cannot imagine R/L/S existing independently of I/T/G as six different variations of DPS just does not fit within the the rules of how this game works. Having a 4th summon of some kind I can see where there's one additional choice of flexibility, but not three. Maybe not exactly as I've written it, but something along those lines seems like the most realistic way to ever get the other 3.

Beyond that I could also see Alexander being a separate action that can be substituted for Bahamut or Phoenix on a 3 minute cooldown or so for a hyper DPS phase where you get to summon Bismarck and Ravana as two longer summon phases in lead up to your next Bahamut/Phoenix, though that seems like more of an 8.0 thing if at all.

[VentVanitas]

There is a lot of room to build on this SMN over the next 10 years without running into another design ceiling.

I see so many people say this and I just don't think it's true. What we don't have is a blank canvas, we have an already used canvas with someone's scribblings on it and we either have to paint over it or just get a new one. We're already at the ceiling.

To add more (meaningful) additions to SMN would mean that we would have to restructure how the job works or at the very least reconsider how demi summons work, because in its current state we could put anything in the downtime filler phase and it would effectively not matter so long as it's sandwiched between the rigid structure of the demis and remains disconnected from everything else.