SMN - Why it is not a very interesting job and not a good upgrade from ACN

[Samuraiking]

What is out of balance?

A lot of things.

I have leveled DRG recently, and while I think DRG class is about perfect, and in much better shape, I noticed my SMN does a ton more dmg than my DRG; it's just not as fun to play. The pet AI is terrible. The customization (turning off certain skills) of pet bar is terrible. The obey command sucks. The overall dmg potential needs to be lowered and we need to be given a little more burst. Yes, Fester is great, but I have to apply dots first, so it's not as easy to kill a bee in AK as it would be on DRG. Still, the ramp-up dmg trade-off is nice, it just sucks for burst fights. There are more things, but I am stuck to 1000 character limit.

[Kevee]

A lot of things.

I have leveled DRG recently, and while I think DRG class is about perfect, and in much better shape, I noticed my SMN does a ton more dmg than my DRG; it's just not as fun to play. The pet AI is terrible. The customization (turning off certain skills) of pet bar is terrible. The obey command sucks. The overall dmg potential needs to be lowered and we need to be given a little more burst. Yes, Fester is great, but I have to apply dots first, so it's not as easy to kill a bee in AK as it would be on DRG. Still, the ramp-up dmg trade-off is nice, it just sucks for burst fights. There are more things, but I am stuck to 1000 character limit.

-Pet AI is not balance(and it's generally fine)
-Customization of pet bar is not balance/Not an intended feature afaik(that's why we can put pet skills on our normal hotbar)
-Obey is working as intended/not related to balance
-More like other classes(specifically DRG, MNK, and especially BLM) need to be buffed up to SMN/BRD levels. We have burst comparable to any other job. 725 potency in the first 3 GCDs.(MNK either just needs a longer timer on GL or a ranged attack to refresh GL timer, their actual DPS is fine)
-It's actually easier because after we apply the DoTs and Fester a bee, we can switch to the other one and still have our DoTs ticking on the first. This isn't balance, though.

-You can bypass the 1000 limit by editing.

[Crevox]

Refer to main post. The balance is off when a pet is never, ever useful.

[Kevee]

Refer to main post. The balance is off when a pet is never, ever useful.

The pet is ~20-30% of your DPS and provides contagion.

It is useful. If you're talking about Ifrit-Egi, it is the best solo-farming pet and provides a niche of an on-demand stun(if for whatever reason no one else in your party has one). Titan-Egi is useful if you're undergeared for a dungeon, or leveling/questing while taking on multiple mobs.

Not to mention a lot of what you post in the OP is wrong.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Rydia

Oh, look.

Bio, Poison, Drain, Osmose, etc.

There is no one "summoner."

They are all vastly different and you just can't accept that. Summoning wasn't the focus for Eiko, Garnet, or Yuna either. They were all better off doing other things, not to mention they functioned completely different. That's just the "summoners," too. Summons functioned differently in XI, XII, and XIII.

No, but when it's different in XIV it's wrong?

Get real.

[Crevox]

it is the best solo-farming pet

No. It's not. There's no reason that makes it so, either. Hence, the main post.

I've got to remember to stop taking people so seriously...

[Kevee]

No. It's not. There's no reason that makes it so, either. Hence, the main post.

I've got to remember to stop taking people so seriously...

Yes, it is.

Things die too fast for contagion to be useful, you don't want garuda pulling things out of your AoE, and the auto attack is stronger than Garuda.

Go farm Apkallus and tell me Ifrit isn't the best for it.

[Karnage720]

Maybe you guys can help me out, instead of me starting a new thread, I see here that Fester does great damage but when I use it, Im only doing a little over 200. Im only 38 so I dont know if that is normal or not. I usually do Bio 2>Miasma>Bio>Fester>Thunder. Am i missing something?

[Kevee]

Maybe you guys can help me out, instead of me starting a new thread, I see here that Fester does great damage but when I use it, Im only doing a little over 200. Im only 38 so I dont know if that is normal or not. I usually do Bio 2>Miasma>Bio>Fester>Thunder. Am i missing something?

Make sure to delay the Fester after Bio until AFTER Bio is present on the mob. If you cast it as soon as possible the Bio debuff won't be up, and Fester won't do full damage.

[Karnage720]

Make sure to delay the Fester after Bio until AFTER Bio is present on the mob. If you cast it as soon as possible the Bio debuff won't be up, and Fester won't do full damage.

Ok, just tried it on a dummy in case I was doing it wrong, it did 264 and I'm lvl 39, what am I missing here. It crit for 394 the second time

[pandabearcat]

Ok, just tried it on a dummy in case I was doing it wrong, it did 264 and I'm lvl 39, what am I missing here. It crit for 394 the second time

264 damage at level 39 doesn't seem that bad.

Most of our damage is from weapon damage...even your GC weapon at 50 will provide a huge jump.

Keep in mind fester isn't "the super nuke" it is just, for us, our hardest hitting single ability.

Looking that the tooltip for it will show you that it has 300 potency at 3 dots. Which means...its great, but not THAT great. Its not going to blow BLM nukes out of the water, in fact, quite the opposite.

I think its roughly equivalent to a 3 stacked Fire 3.

EDIT: just to give an example, I have a GC weapon and mostly DL, when I fester I do about 650-700 damage on bosses. With RS and a crit, I hit for about 1200.