SMN is now the least popular caster again barely one expansion after its rework

[GumshoeJump]

Sometimes I remember stormblood's Egis and I miss them, but only because I am a glutton for objectively bad things that cause me issues. But man do Dawntrail got me missing that absolute nonsense a little extra lately.

Fun fact, did you know in ShB an Egi's auto-attack could proc pyretic? It was awesome, I loved it. Made me remember the button to order them to stop attacking existed.

[Milea]

Sometimes I remember stormblood's Egis and I miss them, but only because I am a glutton for objectively bad things that cause me issues. But man do Dawntrail got me missing that absolute nonsense a little extra lately.

Fun fact, did you know in ShB an Egi's auto-attack could proc pyretic? It was awesome, I loved it. Made me remember the button to order them to stop attacking existed.

When EndWalker came out I would purposely move carbuncle at the boss and everyone would freakout. Because everyone remembers prior to this that would aggro the boss.

However I don't even have the pet bar anymore, it is completely pointless.

edit: or was that Shadowbringer? Actually maybe it was ShB as that is when egi became invincible?

[Valkyrie_]

- They removed the different "roles" the egis had, making them all the same

Woah I completely forgot about that, I actually liked how you swapped out Ifrit and Garuda depending on whether you wanted aoe or single target.
Titan was mostly useless but he did have the occasional niche use in fates or when encountering a new/bad tank, back when aggro management was actually a thing and wasn't pruned from the game like everything else.

Titan also did have his one shining moment in Ramuh EX where he was a fun alternative way to tank the boss, and you could swap out the tanks for more dps.
But sadly they quickly fixed that after a week, can't have an entire role being invalidated in any serious content after all. (except healers of course)

[GumshoeJump]

When EndWalker came out I would purposely move carbuncle at the boss and everyone would freakout. Because everyone remembers prior to this that would aggro the boss.

However I don't even have the pet bar anymore, it is completely pointless.

edit: or was that Shadowbringer? Actually maybe it was ShB as that is when egi became invincible?

It was in fact ShB where the egi became invincible and no longer drew aggro. Placing your egi near the boss was a necessary thing to make your opener smoother. They also removed the need to deliberately buff your Egi for burst time, which I remember having to do in StB.

[Milea]

Woah I completely forgot about that, I actually liked how you swapped out Ifrit and Garuda depending on whether you wanted aoe or single target.
Titan was mostly useless but he did have the occasional niche use in fates or when encountering a new/bad tank, back when aggro management was actually a thing and wasn't pruned from the game like everything else.

Titan also did have his one shining moment in Ramuh EX where he was a fun alternative way to tank the boss, and you could swap out the tanks for more dps.
But sadly they quickly fixed that after a week, can't have an entire role being invalidated in any serious content after all. (except healers of course)

In dungeons when tank would die (which rarely happens these days lol) Titan could temporarily handle the boss while you or the healer got ready to rez.

Titan was great for overworld content as well but overworld content barely exists now.

[aiqa]

To thread title; that is cherrypicking heavily. There were also patches were SMN was the most popular caster, by far. Long after the novelty of the rework wore off. What changed since then; there is another caster option, and SMN does even lower (relative) dps now. If SMN loses rez and gains dps similar to BLM/PCT, I am fairly sure its popularity will go up again.

[Azurarok]

do we really think the rez on SMN is the only thing holding it back from having BLM/PCT-adjacent dps

...would the devs really think the rez on SMN is the only reason it shouldn't do BLM/PCT-adjacent dps

[Supersnow845]

To thread title; that is cherrypicking heavily. There were also patches were SMN was the most popular caster, by far. Long after the novelty of the rework wore off. What changed since then; there is another caster option, and SMN does even lower (relative) dps now. If SMN loses rez and gains dps similar to BLM/PCT, I am fairly sure its popularity will go up again.

I specifically gave it the whole expansion to have the novelty wear off and PCT isn’t a counter, it’s part of my point

If all it took to crash SMN was relatively poor damage and the introduction of PCT what was even the point of the rework in the first place, it’s already unpopular again

[aiqa]

I specifically gave it the whole expansion to have the novelty wear off and PCT isn’t a counter, it’s part of my point

If all it took to crash SMN was relatively poor damage and the introduction of PCT what was even the point of the rework in the first place, it’s already unpopular again

I think "all it took was lowest damage out of all caster, and 2 caster with damage a whole tier up", isn't a small thing in FF. Many people fuss over 1 or 2% rdps differences, SMN is behind far more.

Any job is designed at some point, that is not all wasted effort just because the some numbers are undertuned. Assuming I am correct about the reason people avoid SMN because of low dps... That just means damage is important for FF players and SMN should be buffed a bit. And the more alternative caster jobs FF has, the more likely people will avoid the lower performing caster job(s).

And giving 2 year grace period for a job rework seems rather arbitrary to me. In particular when the fall in popularity coincided with other important changes.

So all in all.... rdps and PCT, yes I can see that contributing to SMN popularity. But the job rework doesn't seem like a relevant point. And certainly not a main point.

[mallleable]

do we really think the rez on SMN is the only thing holding it back from having BLM/PCT-adjacent dps

...do the devs really think the rez on SMN is the only reason it shouldn't do BLM/PCT-adjacent dps

It seems like the balance team only value jobs that have melee, and cast time requirements, and SMN has the least compared to RDM, BLM, and PCT -- and it's why phys ranged is in the dumpster. SMN is being rez taxed, and phys ranged taxed. So SMN could get higher damaging summon phases that have more casting, and stricter positioning requirements -- y'know like maybe Leviathan, Ramuh, and Shiva.