Thread: Feedback: Summoner 8.0 Job Direction & Addressing Caster Raise Tax

While I appreciate differences to Summoner gameplay from as it is currently, hopefully also by reducing the amount of instantcasts the job has because at this point it's an honorary Physical Ranged job and Samurai is an honorary Caster...

...I absolutely need to address the elephant in the room that is your suggestions to Raise Utility and why it is way worse than what we have now.

Originally Posted by Aoyanagi

Phoenix & Raise Utility
Phoenix is summoned using Primal Gauge like other Primals, but consumes Primal Gauge, grants no Dreadwyrm Aether, Delays Bahamut progression
Which results in:

• No damage loss in perfect runs
• Real, visible cost when used in progression
• Lore-accurate

While I find Caster Raise to be a powerful tool for progression, it is powerful because it doesn't massively overtaxes your damage output through direct gameplay and is instead currently taxed by total damage output - which to my knowledge and personal opinion on community sentiment, is already absurdly overtaxed given the DPS discrepency between Raise and non-Raise Caster jobs.

I am going to assume that using your Summons will actually be a major part of your damage output for the job. By making Phoenix not only something "lesser" than Bahamut (feels very sad) but actively hinder your progression to summoning Bahamut AND cost you the gauge for a damage-focused Summon, you actually dial up what is considered overtaxed utility from an 8 out of 10... to 11. At this point you might as well remove Raising on casters altogether because that is a utility not worth playing your job around for with the current raid design.

Originally Posted by Aoyanagi

Similar proposed change to RDM

Verraise consumes around 50 White Mana, which result in immediate mana imbalance, punishing when used, but not affecting damage output in clean run.

The same logic applies here - you are forced to spend what is the equivalent of 5x Veraero III and 4x Verstone and massively delay if not utterly cost you melee combos down the road for a Raise that already costs 2400 MP to begin with. You know what SMN & RDM raises have in common? They don't do damage to begin with, they cost a load of MP and they don't generate resources. And to use them efficiently, you have to burn a Swiftcast or a Dualcast for them.

That said, the "mana imbalance" can be circumvented by having White Mana keep a 22-28 Mana lead over Black Mana, where using Verraise will never actually imbalance you to either side and make further resource building hampered. You can also temporarily overaspect into White Mana ahead of time if you feel like you spotted a guaranteed death.

To Summarize:

Red Mage & Summoner are already overtaxed from a baseline damage output. Raising as a utility has been less intense since Swiftcast received a 40s CD trait in Dawntrail, making Healer raises more readily available between both of the healers. By making your Raises cost an unreasonably excessive amount of your damage output without even addressing where they should be placed on the DPS chart next to Black Mage and Pictomancer to account for said situational tax is just ridiculous.

Also, you know what else doesn't cost you the damage in a perfect run? Playing Black Mage or Pictomancer.

yes smn is the easiest now which is why i proposed this changes. some of these actually based from old hw sb era smn (the dreadwyrm aether)

i do acknowledge some people likes current design as the easy job that "just works" no matter how u press the buttons, this was considered too in my redesign

Originally Posted by Aoyanagi

i think u missed my point. the reason i wanna redesign caster raise is to make caster meta balanced. make raise punishing for rotation but balance all casters equally. so raises only taxes when used. current raise taxed both smn and rdm even when raise isnt used at all in perfect run.

also yea i am smn main since hw, now am pct main cos smn just suffered too much. what's the point of having raise at all when smn dmg itself so low to the point the whole party cant afford any death on wk1. current caster meta is weird cos they tax rdm smn for no reason. raise wasnt even problem back in sb shb but if smn rdm base dmg suffered just simply cos they got raise even when unused, then might as well remove raise from caster so caster meta can be balanced

edit: actually my bad i think i didnt state the caster meta rebalance cos character limit ' - ' ) but ya balance all casters equally, make raise taxing only when used

The way you make it more balanced is by not overtaxing Raise in the first place. Your version of Raise will just result in that raise being used when neither healer is able to, at a hit to damage that puts every other non-damage GCD to shame. It also disregards potential damage losses that could cause wipes with mid-fight dps checks (ultimate phases, add phases, bursting before boss disengages, etc) - it would just not be worth running or adjusting around it.

The solution is to not have Red Mage & Summoner be taxed this hard in the first place - these jobs shouldn't need to barter with the devs to be given a sliver of more damage and have their Raise be utterly wrecked as a result. Summoner, prior to Endwalker, existed as a caster that was competitive with Black Mage in damage output and still had a Raise. Both were still played.

Yes, Raise is a nice prog tool, but it is not worth being taxed this hard for it, its not that good. Having the situational awareness to raise for your healers as well as sacrificing a damaging GCD (along with not generating gauge with the loss of said GCD) should be tax enough as is.

yes i also questioned why raise tax is a thing now, when it was never issue pre ew. i said i was smn main since hw so ya i know how strong smn was without u telling me lmao

but if the dev's new direction is to tax caster raise, then ya me prefer raise to be completely removed from casters, or make it role action so every caster have it, or that above, just tax it only when used, not on clean run

SMN has low dps because it's low effort
RDM has low dps because of rez tax

we are not the same

SMN having having no cast times on most of its spells is a greater contributor to its low damage. It's also why Phys Ranged are in a terrible spot.

Originally Posted by Aoyanagi

yes i also questioned why raise tax is a thing now, when it was never issue pre ew. i said i was smn main since hw so ya i know how strong smn was without u telling me lmao

but if the dev's new direction is to tax caster raise, then ya me prefer raise to be completely removed from casters, or make it role action so every caster have it, or that above, just tax it only when used, not on clean run

That's the trick with the devs. If they remove raise they'll find a new excuse to keep the tax like "job is low effort". See the justification for rphys jobs after they kept hammering us that rphys had lower damage output because of the party support, and now that people ain't buying it anymore, it's because apparently full uptime is low effort even though no mobility tools (so no sloppy mechanical execution allowed unlike other jobs). Next expansion VPR may also get the treatment because it's low effort, although jury's still out since it's a melee job and melee jobs get more attention.

I would honestly not pay too much attention to arbitrary justifications that are given at any time, they're short sighted and ever changing depending on the agenda behind, and mean very little in fine.