SMN Rework/Update Pitch

[Zykorberus]

Let's be honest: Solar Bahamut is purely cosmetic and ultimately redundant because it does the same as Bahamut and Phoenix combined. There is already a Bahamut and there is no need for another one, it's even uncalled for since nobody really asked for it and many people were disappointed because we were all hoping for another DIFFERENT primal to be added, specially when there are already several existing ones to choose from.

If the point is to NOT be redundant and give each Primal a somehow distinct function and identity (or feel) Here's my pitch (or more like my cope):



- Keep Bahamut (the normal one), Garuda, Titan, Ifrit unchanged.

- Ramuh: (Purple jewel color) DMG to all targets when called (same potency as Garuda/Ifrit/Titan openers) BUT with a larger radius like within 8-10 yalms
Gemshine: Single target DoT (like BLM's "Thunder", 1 charge)
Precious Brilliance: Multiple target DoT AOE around caster (like Ramuh does, but with lower potency/duration than the single target cast, 1 charge)
Astral Flow: Refresh DoT OR spread DoT to nearby targets (like SCH's old "Bane" skill used to, 1 charge)


- Shiva: (Light Blue jewel color) Lower DMG (than Garuda/Ifrit/Titan openers) to all targets within 5 yalms when called BUT adding a brief (5-10 seconds) debuff to target(s) DMG dealt.
Gemshine: Medium range cone with low (Garuda potency) DMG to all targets in range BUT with brief (8-10 seconds) slow effect (2 charges)
Precious Brilliance: Wide arc (fore and flanks) low DMG (again, Garuda potency) around caster (similar to BLU's "Glass Dance") with a brief (8-10 seconds) slow effect (shorter range than the single target cone, 2 charges)
Astral Flow: Brief DMG taken reduction to self and party members (8-10 seconds meant only to mitigate the next incoming attack. Kind of like a PLD Sheltron but without the regen effect from Holy Sheltron. 1 charge)


- Leviathan: (Aquamarine jewel color) Medium DMG (than Garuda/Ifrit/Titan openers) to all targets in front of caster when called BUT with a knockback effect.
Gemshine: Long range straight line AoE (Titan potency) with brief (3 seconds) stun effect (just like BLU's "Tatami-gaeshi", 2 charges)
Precious Brilliance: Medium DMG (again, Titan potency) AOE with Hydro Pull effect, can be cast either on self or party member (1 or 2 charges)
Astral Flow: "Veil of the Whorl" effect not only to self but to all party members for around 10 seconds which counters incoming attacks with water DMG and/or a brief (3 seconds) stun effect at enemies when they hit you or any party member within the 10 second Veil effect (just like the BLU spell but party-wide, 1 charge)


- Phoenix: Just upgrade cosmetically to look more Light aspected (like the Rising Phoenix mount) since we already have Ifrit for purely Fire element.

- Physick: Either increase potency (or adjust to lvl while leveling) or remove it altogether because it is useless as it is now. if kept, upgrade cosmetically to be Good King Moggle Mog-themed.

- Resurrection: Upgrade cosmetically to be either Phoenix or Good King Moggle Mog-themed.


***WITH THESE WE GET A NEAT FULL ELEMENTAL WHEEL***

In this setup, at Max lvl, the rotation would go more or less like this:

- Bahamut is still your opener
- The next 3 Primals you pick now become optional, no longer mandatory. You would just need to pick ANY 3 Primals
- Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda keep being your basic damage dealers with the addition of Ramuh as DoT dealer to pick from
- Leviathan and Shiva would be more situational
- Phoenix unlocks not until after using all 6 primal jewels but just after 3 Primals OF YOUR CHOICE. This kinda fixes the monotony of the rotation
- After using Phoenix, ALL the jewels refresh and you can pick another 3 Primals from your 6 options so you don't have to use all of them always. Therefore, you can either choose to go full damage or strategize on whether the situation requires you to use crowd control or mitigation in each 3 Primal jewel window between Bahamut and Phoenix

Basically: Bahamut> Any 3 Primals> Phoenix> Any 3 Primals> Bahamut> and so on.


***ALL OF THESE WOULD NOT BE MEANT TO BE RELEASED AT ONCE OF COURSE, BUT MAYBE WITHIN THE NEXT 2 EXPANSIONS OR SOMETHING***


Yes, yet another SMN dreamer, I know. But I don't think my pitch is too out of the park. All of the skills already exist so there is nothing groundbreaking but it does give some variety by adding defensive/buff/debuff effect skills other than just damage and healing and that makes all of these doable.

What do you think?

[Keichi]

Hey, at last arent there 4 Bahamuth, like in FF7.^^

To your summons:

- What is it with the 5 Yalm thing? Siummons are allways by the chara, or? This 5 Yalm thing looks useless, because in most cases, are you away from enemie (aside of solo content).

- Ramuh: Looks like the thunder spell from the Blm. But, how much around the caster would be the second attack? It would need a high yalm number. Otherwise would the skill be useless (had the same problem, like the original Blizzard 2 skill, Aoe around the cvaster, but with just a short range, that it became useless, esspecial, because caster stands away from enemies -even, when the idea and look wasnt bad-).

- SHiva: a corne attack would be nice for the optic. And is something, that as good as no one has (most classes has only bombs/ circle attacks or line attacks). Most important would be the range of the attacks.

Biggest problem with 6 summons, who has there own uses:
How are you able to choice betwéen them?
Increasing the gauge to 6 jewels? Or has a switch skill, like BLM has it, to switch to the second set of gems?

In addition would i think, that one problem of the summoner is, that the summons stay to shortly. The 3 main primals are only for a few seconds there.
Instant of adding new summoners, could they maybe increase the duration the primals stay, and give them more action to do.
One complaiment is, that there skills doesnt feels much differently to all the other spells.

[Zykorberus]

Ok Good points. Here's my reasoning:

Bahamut: Big DMG boi
Garuda: quick DMG dealer, low potency
Titan: Mid speed DMG dealer, Mid potency
Ifrit Slow Dmg dealer, High Potency
Phoenix: DMG and Heal

Then:

Ramuh: DoT DMG dealer (To me, the single target DoT would be just like the BLM thunder spell but the multiple target would be ONLY around the caster but with a decent radius which i would leave to the devs as well as potency. Im focusing more on what it could be like in general, not so much on specific numbers). At max lvl Ramuh would be used mostly as opener because of the DoT.

Shiva: Positional low DMG dealer BUT with Slow Effect AND mitigation. (I'm thinking the DMG from the skill it would do right when you summone her may be lower than other Primals but to compensate, it could come with a DMG debuff to the targets. In my head, the animation for when she pops would be similar to how she does in the Aitiascope boss fight but instead of the giant ice block you need to get behind of, it would be a skill that lowers the target's DMG for a few seconds 5 to 10 and you would use her right before a mob attack hits calling her would be situational and her phase skills would have slow effect and/or DMG debuff for targets.

Leviathan: Im thinking this could be a Crowd Control Primal. His opener could be a Tsunami and have a knockback effect at least on regular mobs and ads and the Precious Brilliance could have a pull effect like BLU's Hydro Pull. Lastly the Astral flow could be the Party-wide Veil of the Whorl effect with counter DMG and/or stun effect when target hits you or the party for around 10ish seconds. So this one would be used mostly for trash mobs or ads.

And yeah, following this logic you would have 6 jewels but you only need ot use 3 OF YOUR CHOICE per window. Additionally, notice Ramuh would have only 1 charge and both Shiva and Levi would have 2 charges at most in order not to make you too op since they would have added effects and party utility with mitigation and crow control respectively.

[AlphaXXI]

I honestly don't think we should expect to have all the element anymore, it'd give SMN way too many unique animations and VFX compared to other jobs and be unfair in that regard. It was actually more likely when the egis were their own thing and didn't give SMN specific actions for each one.

That said if they do decide to go with it, I think we can expect there to be a mechanic separating the two "rows" of summons. Like how astro now has astral and umbral pulls, I could see the new summons being unlocked during a specific phase of the rotation. Maybe have them be tied to Solar Bahamut, because obviously they're not gonna get rid of it completely ? I could see it going that way:

Instead of having solar bahamut be the first summon in the rotation for no reason, there could be a new gauge that fills up when you land hits as phoenix, that represents our umbral ether, which when filled would allow us to summon Solar bahamut as the next demi (changing his affiliation, essentially) which would grant us the new gems instead of the old ones. And after using all three you would get access to Lunar Phoenix as the demi, which would fill the gauge with astral ether, turning everything back to how it currently is.

I also assume we'd get an action that fills up the gauge with umbral ether instantly, so that we can match other jobs' burst windows during openers.

But maybe that's too similar to other existing jobs.

[Khryseis_Astra]

***WITH THESE WE GET A NEAT FULL ELEMENTAL WHEEL***

***ALL OF THESE WOULD NOT BE MEANT TO BE RELEASED AT ONCE OF COURSE, BUT MAYBE WITHIN THE NEXT 2 EXPANSIONS OR SOMETHING***

I’m all for anything that gives me Levi-Shiva-Ramuh as gem summons. I want all 6 elements! However, I’ve seen a couple people now suggest also having astral/umbral phases as well, and I really think that would be a great addition, as well as adding a way to choose which triad of gems you’re going to use without it being clunky.

So we already got Solar Bahamut, which is basically “Hydaelyn/Light”… eventually we’d probably get Lunar Phoenix, aka “Zodiark/Dark.” (Just as a logical progression, who knows what they’d call it, or what model they’ll use, but I’m sure a case could be made for Shinryu as Dark… lol) After that we’d just need a astral/umbral shift button to switch between phases, maybe akin to BLM’s Tranpose. Starting in Umbral would be default, or you could hit the button to start in Astral. So that would make the basic rotation:

Umbral Demi > Umbral Gem Triad > Astral Demi > Astral Gem Triad > Bahamut > Umbral Triad > Phoenix > Astral Triad

Seems rather long, but assuming the 2 minute burst window doesn’t get increased as more new skills are added, you would have some choice as to what phase you want to have for your burst. Because of that, I wouldn’t make the potencies of the second gem set too far off from the original, but make the buffs/debuffs of the summon phase the deciding factor for which one to open with.

Like you said, things would probably need to be added over multiple expansions… but they really need to throw us the other gem set next!

Definitely take a look at the other recent SMN threads though, I can’t remember which one at this point, but someone else put together a really good visual rotation image that probably makes a lot more sense than mine.

I honestly don\\'t think we should expect to have all the element anymore, it\\'d give SMN way too many unique animations and VFX compared to other jobs and be unfair in that regard. It was actually more likely when the egis were their own thing and didn\\'t give SMN specific actions for each one.

PCT will have spells with unique animations and VFX for all elements at Level 100. So I’d say SMN is far behind in this. They’ve built a nice template for adding new summons with the gem buttons. So adding the other elements is the easiest way to add new skills without adding a ton of new buttons.

[Khryseis_Astra]

Definitely take a look at the other recent SMN threads though, I can’t remember which one at this point, but someone else put together a really good visual rotation image that probably makes a lot more sense than mine.

Found the graphic… it is Epikairekakia’s post on this thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...499369/?page=3

I think the gem sets may need tweaked to match up with the elemental wheel, but I’m really liking the astral/umbral/full element approach.

[Eudyptes]

I'd like it if they had Leviathan, Garuda, and Titan in one set building white magic to charge up Phoenix, then Ifrit, Ramuh, and Shiva building black magic to charge up Bahamut. Idc how exactly each primal plays beyond that personally.

I'm not a fan of the concept of Solar Bahamut in general. I'd rather them just round out the primal wheel and call it a day. Tbh I don't even think I'd want more summons to be added after that either, unless they reworked how classes worked in general. Otherwise the class would get too convoluted too quick. Maybe just new skills each xpac that fleshed out the existing summons or something.

[SeverianLyonesse]

Eh for several reasons I still do not think adding the other three summons will actually improve the job, aesthetically or mechanically. I think, for at least as long as we have strict 2-minute rotations, it has all the summons it needs to feel like it has a base kit and some extra powerful spells; anything more would actually dilute the "summoner" feel imo (Solar Bahamut is already kind of doing this), as none of the base kit summons would be around long enough to feel consequential. Any notions of introducing the concept of "choice" like how SMN has been represented in every FF game prior, is just ignoring the reality that FFXIV is not designed to accommodate a traditional iteration of SMN.

THAT said, the obvious and elegant solution is just to implement glamours. That would provide plenty of player choice without affecting the job design.

[rawker]

Eh for several reasons I still do not think adding the other three summons will actually improve the job, aesthetically or mechanically.

This is correct. The core problem with modern SMN is that there is no variation or deviation to it. I mean, there has been a video proving that the entire current SMN kit can be condensed to a single button. And it is, i kid you not, able to do its rotation. If this doesn't look broken, i don't know what is.

Even if they implement every iconic summon monster in the franchise, for as long as it will make use of the current system, it will never be able to change how boring, uninspired, and unrewarding the job is. The only fix to this is to re-introduce the situational needs/opportunity costs to the job... let it have other things to monitor.. i dunno.. like a pet, like they used to.

[Eudyptes]

Eh for several reasons I still do not think adding the other three summons will actually improve the job, aesthetically or mechanically.

This is correct.

(Snipped down both quotes for character limitations.)

So I get what you two are saying, and it's not entirely wrong, but it needs to be both. Whether people like to admit it or not, aesthetics and class identity are a major aspect of the game, and the latter specifically has been missing from SMN since it's addition. DoT mages are fine as their own thing, but it wasn't a "Final Fantasy Summoner", and the changes the last couple xpacs have been taking steps to making it resemble what it should look like within the games current set parameters for classes. Adding the other three summons will give the class a virtually complete/rounded out identity, and from there you start talking about mechanics and how to make it work in a fun and exciting way. Personally I have some ideas like removing Phoenix and Bahamut from the core rotation, and filling their spots with Fenrir and Carbuncle, then moving Bahamut and Phoenix to a more "major summon" position that you earn via job gauge. And then you can add Alex, Odin, etc to that "major summon" list in future xpacs.

That said though, keep in mind that for the most part no dps really has much variance. SMN might be the worst case scenario when you dissect them all, but all dps have a pretty strict dps rotation that you aren't going to change up if your goal is to do the most dps. It's a problem that has been bothering me more and more as time goes on because classes are starting to feel too samey and frankly it's getting boring. But it's not uniquely a SMN problem by any means. My hope is that if we are sacrificing class overhauls in 7.0 in favor of new boss mechanics, etc, that in 8.0 it becomes the inverse and they hard focus on changing up how classes are played in a major way. Giving them all their unique class identity faithful to the series while also just making them more interesting to play. It's just unfortunate that that'll be at least two years out at this point regardless.