Summoners useless in 24mans?

[NamanoNanaya]

I think it's clever, Summoner DPS Certainly needs to be a concern on the radar. I'm all for different styles of play, but throwing dots, and a pet, and essentially safe from 80%+ of all fight mechanics due to the ability of sitting back 40+ yards away from the boss (NOT REAL NUMBERS) Makes stacking them far too common and defeats the point of having other DPS as far as elitists are concerned. They need to be limited before they get out of control even further.
If this turns out to be true, then that's a clever way of ensuring that summoners are still a vital part of groups, but blacklisting other jobs because they can't ignore 80% of mechanics, or suffer real penalties for actually doing their jobs.

Time will tell!

[Yumad]

I think it's clever, Summoner DPS Certainly needs to be a concern on the radar. I'm all for different styles of play, but throwing dots, and a pet, and essentially safe from 80%+ of all fight mechanics due to the ability of sitting back 40+ yards away from the boss (NOT REAL NUMBERS) Makes stacking them far too common and defeats the point of having other DPS as far as elitists are concerned. They need to be limited before they get out of control even further.
If this turns out to be true, then that's a clever way of ensuring that summoners are still a vital part of groups, but blacklisting other jobs because they can't ignore 80% of mechanics, or suffer real penalties for actually doing their jobs.

This sounds like melee butthurt to me. Welcome to MMOs, melee dps is and has always been harder when fights are not designed to punish ranged, which is the majority outside of WoW and some of the newer fights in EQ2.

[Yumad]

Bloody 1k character cap.

By "elitists" do you mean real progression guilds or scrub pugs who want to overgear and stack the raid in their favour due to lack of skill? If you mean real progression guilds, you don't need to worry about that, it does not sound like you belong in one.

Why would you blame the players for doing the optimal path? That's what some people like to do, optimize. You complaining about being limited by your own choices or abilities and suggesting that THEY be restricted is trying to control someone else's life and gameplay because of your choices. They aren't controlling you, they are simply excluding you. You don't want to be excluded? You have the power to not be, choose to satisfy their requirements or make your own group.

[Ryuko]

I skimmed the first few pages but I haven't found an answer to this...

Is anyone sure that the DoTs are REALLY capped at 30? I mean, yes... there only 'thirty' available DoT/buff 'slots' in the UI for a boss. However, that could just be a limit on what's showing and NOT a limit on what can be put on the mob. For example... If you look at the 'party' list, you can only currently see up to FIVE buffs/HoTs/DoTs on a party member at a time. This is super frustrating as a healer because you can't see for SURE if someone has a debuff unless you target them separately. Perhaps the '30 limit' is visual only because the enemy target bar can only take up so much 'space' on your UI.

I could be wrong... and if I am, I would like to see some sort of official statement by SE. Perhaps when you try to apply a DoT over the 30 limit, it says "no effect?" I'm not sure but I think FATE parties are a really bad example to use... no one knows what is or isn't affecting a mob during a FATE party because there's no way to accurately detect what's going on.

Anyway, a Summoner will typically keep 4 DoTs up on a main target constantly, with the occasional Virus (counts as 2 debuffs for SMN), Blind (shares diminished returns with other classes) and the AoE debuff you actually have to run up to use. The ground effect counts as a 'buff' on you and not a debuff on the mob as far as UI is concerned.

I personally hate the way the current UI works for buffs/debuffs. Having the text be in 'green' for your effects really isn't enough when there is no rhyme or rhythm to what's on the target. I would love it if there were an option to put my effects first or last on the list, just so they are at least bunched together... Fortunately, it's gotten to a point where a SMN has 'memorized' when it would be the appropriate time to refresh DoTs anyway.

[Jynx]

Is anyone sure that the DoTs are REALLY capped at 30?

Yes it is, it's very obvious when you use a summoner skill called "Fester" wich will only do damage if your characters DoT abillities on on the monster. Go to any popular fate like Svara a meaty mob with way more than 24 zerging it and you will be able to see the 30 status effect cap tick over.

When this happens cast Bio, Miasma, Bio II (All skill that will allow Fester to proc and do damage) You will promptly see "No effect" tick instead of damage because your DoT's have been overwritten by other characters.

[Ryuko]

Yes it is, it's very obvious when you use a summoner skill called "Fester" wich will only do damage if your characters DoT abillities on on the monster. Go to any popular fate like Svara a meaty mob with way more than 24 zerging it and you will be able to see the 30 status effect cap tick over.

When this happens cast Bio, Miasma, Bio II (All skill that will allow Fester to proc and do damage) You will promptly see "No effect" tick instead of damage because your DoT's have been overwritten by other characters.

Yes, that's exactly what I was asking... if there was any sort of message that said 'no effect'. Now I know there is. Back when I was leveling SMN, the population cap was still in place so I wasn't experiencing these issues. We'll have to see what happens in 24-man content. Regardless, no one should be 'class stacking' like they were in 1.0 (BLM on Garuda/CC, MNK on AV, etc). If a summoner typically has four DoTs up and constantly rolling, that would be only twelve 'debuff' slots if there was one SMN per party in the 'alliance'. That's less than half of the bar.

Summoner damage is reliable as long as the SMN knows how to stay alive. Our damage keeps ticking as we move, and our burst (Fester) is instant. That doesn't mean our job is 'easy'. We still have to dodge things, and we do have our weaknesses. I suspect that the debuff slots were created with the intention of preventing people from stacking certain classes (such as SMN, which I assume SE thought would be incredibly popular since it was the brand new 'shiny' pet class).

[Reika]

Yes, that's exactly what I was asking... if there was any sort of message that said 'no effect'. Now I know there is. Back when I was leveling SMN, the population cap was still in place so I wasn't experiencing these issues. We'll have to see what happens in 24-man content. Regardless, no one should be 'class stacking' like they were in 1.0 (BLM on Garuda/CC, MNK on AV, etc). If a summoner typically has four DoTs up and constantly rolling, that would be only twelve 'debuff' slots if there was one SMN per party in the 'alliance'. That's less than half of the bar.

Summoner damage is reliable as long as the SMN knows how to stay alive. Our damage keeps ticking as we move, and our burst (Fester) is instant. That doesn't mean our job is 'easy'. We still have to dodge things, and we do have our weaknesses. I suspect that the debuff slots were created with the intention of preventing people from stacking certain classes (such as SMN, which I assume SE thought would be incredibly popular since it was the brand new 'shiny' pet class).

You don't need to class stack to reach 30 debuffs/dots. It counts every debuff and dot that can be applied from one character that is stackable, and there are a lot.

SMN damage is pretty crappy without the dots and fester btw. Take that away and they are one of the more useless classes on the battlefield.

[Ryuko]

You don't need to class stack to reach 30 debuffs/dots. It counts every debuff and dot that can be applied from one character that is stackable, and there are a lot.

SMN damage is pretty crappy without the dots and fester btw. Take that away and they are one of the more useless classes on the battlefield.

I know how useless SMN is without DoTs... I'd be a pretty bad SMN if I didn't. =P I really would like to wait and see what Crystal Tower is going to look like. People have 'proved' that there IS a cap based on FATE mobs, but we all know that a ridiculous amount of people do those FATEs so it's not an accurate assessment of twenty-four raid members. It is known that summoners have the capacity to stack more debuffs on a mob than any other class (and USUALLY do), which is why I am saying avoiding class stacking will be a good way to keep the number down. Perhaps this 'cap' will be increased in the Crystal Tower. We just can't know for sure yet.

[Kovensky]

Is anyone sure that the DoTs are REALLY capped at 30? I mean, yes... there only 'thirty' available DoT/buff 'slots' in the UI for a boss. However, that could just be a limit on what's showing and NOT a limit on what can be put on the mob.

Yes, this is actually a hard limit on what the server is willing to handle. If you cast, say, Bio, and it doesn't take effect due to the 30 debuff limit, and you use Fester, it'll do *no* damage (as opposed to the shitty damage it'd do because you only would only have a single debuff, but that's not the point of the (thought?) experiment).

[Nictuswolf]

He is talking about the limitations as to how many dots a target can have from all sources.

Do Svara as SMN, pretty easy to see the issue.

DoT target, wait 4 seconds, fester > little to no damage due to lack of DoTs.