(Un)Official Arcanist/Summmoner Feedback Thread

[jars]

2 minute cooldown reduction resulting in a 5 dps overall gain

hmmm... nope it wouldn't

[Kevee]

Wasn't it confirmed that Ifrit's melee attacks count as blunt, piercing and slashing?

No, it's blunt.

2 minute cooldown reduction resulting in a 5 dps overall gain

hmmm... nope it wouldn't

Yes, it would.

SMN needs no more DPS. The only reason to lower the CD would be to give more DPS.

Nothing else.

And we don't need more DPS.

[jars]

that's nonsensical. if they doubled the cooldown and increased the damage by a larger amount then it would be a buff to summoners, but the problem with enkindle would be even more pronounced.

[Kevee]

that's nonsensical. if they doubled the cooldown and increased the damage by a larger amount then it would be a buff to summoners, but the problem with enkindle would be even more pronounced.

It's a DPS cooldown.

It provides (burst) DPS.

There is no problem with it.

[T0rin]

2 minute cooldown reduction resulting in a 5 dps overall gain

hmmm... nope it wouldn't

I get what you are trying to say.. we get this level 50 ability (Enkindle) that is supposed to do some pet super attack, and it turns out to be less potent than a Flare and used like 30 times less often. It would be cool if this big flashy animation (it is) had some real impact. It would be cool to see like 3k+ flash up on the screen.

But.. right now, SMN sits on the razor's edge in terms of balance. We have the best ST and 2-4 target DPS in the game. We are like ~2-3 in terms of best AoE DPS in general. We do the best DPS in the hardest content currently in the game. And if they ever actually show DoT damage in the combat logs, it is going to be obvious to 100% of the players. If anything, SMN right now is OP when played right. That is the catch that probably keeps us from the nerfhammer. Right now, a very small minority actually realizes what SMN is doing at the higher levels of play.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to add damage on anything, at all.

[Sylari]

On an unrelated note. The lore for the Summoner's Relic weapon really sucks.

It is. There is virtually no fight where, even if Ifrit did the same ST damage, you would use him.

Not one.

That's obvious though. In any situation where damage is equal and one has superior utility you'll always go with that option. Which is why Ifrit needs to either do some arbitrarily higher amount of ST damage to theoretically compensate for the utility or be given comparable utility of his own.

Garuda should be AoE, Ifrit should be ST, and Titan should be the solo/tank pet.

This is more ideal of course but would likely require more effort to implement (though you could probably just get away with nerfing Windblast and buffing Aerial Slash in that regard I supppose).

Though honestly I half expect a nerf to Windblast either way.

2 minute cooldown reduction resulting in a 5 dps overall gain

hmmm... nope it wouldn't

The problem is that when you're dealing a class that's widely considered to be top dog in its field any sort of buff to its raw effectiveness is a bad one. As lame as it is, realisitcally in order to get a better Enkindle something else would have to get worse.

[legojoe]

As a main Summoner, I don't feel like I'm making that significant of a impact in terms of dps. Mainly because the DoT damage counters are lost in that pile of ally damage counters.

I feel that the Summoner pets are the real issue here. Besides Garuda's Contagion to extend the DoT timers and Titan's ability to play solo with, there almost have no synergy w/ the player. I don't know about other MMOs but I'll name the one I only know of: Guild Wars. The Ranger class in that game allows the player to call upon a pet to do battle with. The pet itself has no skills, all skills are commanded by the player. I can choose what I want my pet to do. Attack faster, chase someone down, silence, daze, hit harder, etc. I feel like an actual pet master w/ full control over what my pet does.

Here, I just sic my pet onto the enemy and leave it alone. Occasionally changing their locations and whatnot.

[Aexrael]

Contagion is probably too significant an ability to be available from the Summons, because it's so highly desired/effective it will be in risk of overshadowing any future summons usefulness, let alone the existing ones. An ability which affects the core functionality (DoTs) of a class so fundamentally, is too good to be considered for "situational" use.

In that case it may be better off for the Job if Contagion were a part of the base Summoner abilities. I would remove Spur all together and replace it with Contagion. Spur feels largely redundant design wise in the presence of Rouse. If need be Rouse could see an increase in effectiveness to offset the loss of Spur, but I doubt that would really be needed and it would open up for more interesting changes to the Job.

Some other changes to go alongside these would be to change Enkindle to be a Buff like "burnout" effect with rapid MP drain on the SMN, but it would unlock the Summons "True potential/Ability" for the given time period that Enkindle is active. Right now Enkindle feels underwhelming, both visually but also functionally.

Similarly Sustain could also be a Toggle instead of a short term effect, draining HP instead of MP to heal the Summon. Que all the summoners killing themselves!

Miasma II is another ability which could use a complete redesign/replacement, though unsure to what purpose/effect.

In light of this the current summons would need to be redesigned to serve different roles, without going in to meticulous details Ifrit would be setup to be focused around Melee Single Target Sustained Damage, perhaps with a closer ability similar to the "slide" Ifrit uses in the HM fight.

Garuda would be focused around Ranged AoE Damage with a mix of burst and sustained, taking a que from the real Garuda and maybe giving it an ability similar to the Storms in the Garuda fight but on a smaller scale as well as the Single Target Splash Damage attack of hers, alongside a main AoE attack (And no KB!).

Lastly Titan would remain as a Single Target Melee Tank.

In the future summons they could add more "interesting" ones, such as a Effectiveness Debuff focused Summon or a more Crowd Control focused one, or a Ranged Tank, or AoE/Mob Crowd specialist tank that thrives the more mobs it tanks ect. Leaving Buffs/Support for the Scholar.

[Zorzi]

I would remove Spur all together and replace it with Contagion. Spur feels largely redundant design wise in the presence of Rouse. If need be Rouse could see an increase in effectiveness to offset the loss of Spur, but I doubt that would really be needed and it would open up for more interesting changes to the Job.

Similarly Sustain could also be a Toggle instead of a short term effect, draining HP instead of MP to heal the Summon. Que all the summoners killing themselves!

Miasma II is another ability which could use a complete redesign/replacement, though unsure to what purpose/effect.

You would have to be careful with changing SMN, because of SCH (and vice versa). These are all ACN abilities, so any changes would effect ACN/SCH too. Like, removing Spur and buffing Rouse would be a straight buff to SCH since Spur is SMN only, but Rouse is ACN/SCH/SMN.

Although, toggle Sustain opens a funny (to me) situation of the fairy being stuck in a loop of only healing the SCH, since they prioritize the SCH's health above all others.

[Akiza]

There is no need to remove spur if you buff enkindle because they are Summoners skill that are a cast on the pet and it will give us a reliable burst. Enkindle does 1144 damage after casting rouse and spur and it has a 5min cool down now Flare does 1144 damage and can be done every 30s after transpose and a few blizzards. To make Enkindle on par with flare the cool down should be reduced to 180s and buff the damage to 3,000.