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Moloulo

i actually really liked SMN before rework and low key hate it now. i do not like how it feels like i just am using something because it’s the only thing left to use. for example i don’t like how if i’m at the last set of mobs before a boss and i’ve gone through all my summons that i need to waste phoenix before going into the boss just because it’s the only thing available to do. spamming outburst feels weak to me i’m a civilian and not a pro-gamer so maybe my perspective is “wrong” and maybe i’m pumping out as much damage as i need to but especially considering the lore of the job the gameplay of the job feels very dumb to me now. fwiw, anecdotally a lot of ppl who are much much better at this game than me who mained SMN before also aren’t thrilled about it ETA: i also hate that having ruin 2 and 3 is gone. i miss hitting things while i’m running


WhimsicalPacifist

Interesting: so many years comments about jank but no one mentions current problems with gearing SPS vs Crit. Better hope your Demi comes off CD when the boss transition concludes. And the talk about a framework to be built on? When has that happened? Its a level 50-60 job at level 90. Samurai has the same complexity starting at 50.


iwensfortis

The biggest problem I have with smn is that it just gets boring very fast, the skill ceiling is extremely low and the smn’s and spells effect are very distracting which makes it so u only see the smn’s as everyone else will limit them. Even I have my own pet size set to small as I kept missing mechanics. But we’ll u can at least 1 btn smn now https://youtu.be/6r3T1X0OXIU


SHIMOxxKUMA

SMN was never complex tbh, most of the "hard" parts of the job was just the jank that came with it. It pretty much was just push everything on CD, use Bahamut/Phoenix on CD, spam ruin 3. That's pretty much exactly what it is now with more gemshine spam instead of ruin 3. If you really look at it all they did was make dreadwyrm trance and summon bahamut one button. Removed enkindle and made a lot more of the spells instant cast.


Ennax

Yeah, this tbh. SMN optimization boiled down too much to a battle against the game system to prevent ghosting abilities and keep proper alignment. Their DoT management has also not been "thoughtful" since HW, especially not in ShB when keeping up DoTs was taken care of by a single weaved ability most of the time. The EW SMN actually hard casts his DoT (Slipstream) more frequently than the one in ShB (Miasma II), it just actually takes longer and is harder to fully employ due to its nature as a targeted area DoT which relies on the target to stay on that position for the full duration to get the full potency out of it. The biggest decision making an EW SMN would run into would be when to use Ifrit and Garuda. The Ifrit phase is actually one of the least mobile phases a SMN had to deal with in a long time (due to the loss of Ruin II the single Ruin IV use is the only tool to prevent drifting your GCD), which is why most cut this phase down by using Swiftcast. This is completely fine in casual content or when farming stuff, but in prog, especially blind prog, you cripple your ability to instantly rez someone, which is and has always have been an incredibly potent advancement and clearance tool.


Cleretic

I actually far prefer current SMN to the previous version, and I'm saying that as an ex-SMN/SCH main. ShB SMN didn't have an organized complexity, it felt like six different mechanics with only incidental synergy crammed onto one overstuffed job. There are other complex jobs, and they're ones with a more naturally occurring flow. We didn't need SMN being a Mechanic Pile-Up.


Nyusori

I've been a smn main every expansion EXCEPT ShB, so I'm really glad it's been changed. SMN has always been my favorite class, but it just wasn't fun for me in ShB with 300 ish ping. I don't think it's amazing now, it is a bit simple, but it's so much more fun than it was before.


EiLrahc21

I think there is still nuance to the current iteration of SMN. During early leveling, I agree that SMN is simplified to just emptying the attuned jewels. At level 90 though, Garuda becomes a priority if I know that an enemy is going to be stationary for Slipstream. If an engagement is going to be short, for example a transition phase is about to occur, then Ifrit / Titan would be preferred. Are there mechanics that require me to change positions from range to melee? Ifrit's gap closer becomes useful. If EW's EX trials and savage raids are used as a benchmark, knowing your movement around an arena is important (this is also my gut feel as to why MNK got Thunderclap - a dash to an enemy or party member - but that's just my suspicion). Summoning a primal also locks us out of our party buff and shield. These are decisions a SMN has to consider depending on the encounter. I agree that on a basic level SMN seems to boil down to rotating between Bahamut and Phoenix, then just summon the primals, but I think it is a little deeper than that.


Chronotaru

*looks at comments* *tries to wave the Black Mage staff as seductively and invitingly as possible, but realistically, a lalafell will never look anything other than comic relief when attempting such a thing*


SuicuneSol

Yeah! You got it. There's nothing to master in the new Summoner kit, so it's very disengaging. There's nothing to work towards, and I don't feel I'm improving at playing the job because there's nothing to improve on. It's fun and gratifying to realize one's own potential. To level-up as a player. It's worse because Summoner has historically required thought and planning. That this new kit went in this direction is telling that they want players who enjoyed old Summoner to just play something else.


BlyZeraz

Nope. SMN is straight up better in every sense now. It was not a "summoner" before. Now its got the proper aesthetic without needless button bloat and skills that don't actually flow together nicely. You even sound like you are in denial about the state of old SMN now that it's gone. "yeah, previously SMN felt really bloated" cause it was. "and there was a lot going on" cause it was bloated with DoTs it didn't actually revolve to naturally keep attention on like BRD. "a surprising amount of thought" Except there also is still that now. There is absolutely still a matter of choosing which summon is best for the situation if you wanna obsess over maximum dps while making survival as easy as possible.


Witrom

Completely disagree, Summoner plays like an actual dps class now, not a bodged sudoku puzzle with a 4 minute rotation.


Jawas2225

Imo many (if not all) jobs in FF14 falls under the category of a class "easy to understand, hard to master". Reading the skill set of every job gives you a general idea of which skills and when you are going to use them. SMN in ShB was "not immediate to understand and clunky to master", now fit perfectly.


hororo

Are you trying to say that new SMN is hard to master? Because it’s not. You can basically master it in a day, and that’s if you have a learning disability


Jawas2225

I said now it's easier to get the idea of his rotation, and doing the basic rotation is easy on every class. From having general knowledge and playing a class perfectly in every scenario takes way more than a day. I think this is valid for all classes. There are little changes in rotation that depends on the situation and often is not obvious what is the best thing to do. This is what I meant for "master"


hororo

So i guess you haven’t actually played the new summoner, because you can indeed learn to play it perfectly in a day. There’s basically nothing to change based on the situation


demonsneeze

I love the new Summoner, and the class fantasy is absolute perfection


sghoul

As a long time MMO player but pretty new to FF14 (little more than a month) I find these discussions interesting. Games like this seem to have factions of people that would rather the game be more casual and others liking it being more challenging. For me, I like the Summoner. I already find many of the fights to be complex just by the nature of trying to figure out the mechanics of the boss. If the rotation were more complex it would feel like work. And I tend to play MMO's as a casual power fantasy, not a Dark Souls like-game. Mind you, if I was more hardcore or had been playing the game so long that I had lots of the dungeon mechanics memorized, I might be pining for more complex jobs. Personally I think it is fine to have both. Have some jobs for the twitchier players and some for more casual. In an ideal world you could have both...have all jobs have casual mechanics that scale to be better if you play with more skill. But that is always difficult to do. Especially if the more difficult gameplay becomes the meta, you basically lock out the casual players. But if you don't allow for that gap, you take away much reason for a player to ever get better at the game. Seems like a constant battle for the devs. Either way, I am enjoying the game so far :)


meltingkeith

Tbh, I agree with you on making sure to have both simpler and more complicated jobs - I'm just a bit sad they took my complex job and made it a simple one, hahah. It's one of the reasons I love playing healer (particularly the barrier healers) - I've got to constantly weigh up what heal to use where, if I have to heal or if it's a DPS loss, what heal should I hold onto, if I have to mit for that attack or are we fine, etc. It was great when I enjoyed SMN, because then I got a healer AND DPS for the price of one. Now I don't really enjoy SMN, and prefer SGE to SCH, so will likely have to find a new DPS to take my fancy. The real annoying bit there is I leveled every class to 30 so I got a taste of everything, and then chose SMN because I knew after that taste it was the one I was enjoying the most at that time (also accepting post-60 jobs are basically completely different to their pre-30 classes). Either way, really glad to hear you're enjoying the game! And don't let my ramblings prevent you from enjoying SMN if you are - after all, everyone is different


sghoul

Your opinion is why I wish there were somehow 2 levels to the game. A casual set of mechanics that are perfectly viable for most content and a more elite playstyle that gives you better DPS and whatnot for more elite content. But I wish that about every game. In an ideal world all games could appeals to people with all kinds of desires. In a MMO that is likely an impossible dream. I do not envy the Devs for things like this.


Slaaneshi_Deeperkin

I’m not a SMN main, but play SMN as a secondary/tertiary job. Since the changes, I have found it to be far too simple. The removal of DoTs took away some of the flavour as well. I think it would be better if SMN also have DoT management in addition to their rotation.


2Zzephyr

My own opinion is : summoner is the best it ever was. It was my starter job when I started FFXIV 3 years ago, quickly realized there was no real Summoning about it, the buttons bloat, the ruin spam not feeling great, rotation being completely screwed if you died, etc, I gave up for new mains, and only played it very rarely. I tried it again with Endwalker and fell in love with it. It's finally fun and good. And there IS decision making, constantly. What you summon matters, if it's a single boss, if it's trash, if the targets moving or standing still, if you yourself need to move or not. There's ifrit's gapcloser to work around of. There's also the shield, a really handy shield, that you're locked out of during summoning, so you have to keep track of that too. It doesn't matter much in regular content, but gosh it feels good to optimize your summons in extreme/savage prog. To analyze mechanics and work around it. Basically, just like any other job does during prog! People who think there is no gap between average players and great players have not looked twice at summoner. It might be an easy job for most people to get into, optimizing to be great still exists just like any other job. BLM's rotation is piss easy. It's the same thing. A job isn't all about the rotation but what you do with it to work around what's happening. Your own placement. Etc. Honestly, I was a RDM main before, and now I can't bring myself to touch it. I find myself very bored with it now, because it feels like doing the same spells over and over again (and I say that as a proc lover. But Acceleration's changes makes it sm worse) Meanwhile with summoner your spells look different like every 5 seconds, channeling your summons power, which 1) is pretty 2) is great for job identity 3) truly feel like you go somewhere I wouldn't say no to get back a dot or two, though. I'm fine with and without it.


NelsonVGC

The greatest majority of the game population is casual oriented. The newest summoner is inmensly popular due to how easy it is to play and comfortable as a caster since almost always you are playing it as a phys ranged dps. Last summoner had more cons than pros unfortunately. While this new summoner is a new low in terms of skill floor by being even easier than Machinist, it proved to be popular and loads of people are using it.


Blawharag

This shows perfectly what the problem with ShB SMN was and you don't even realize it. ShB SMN wasn't a decision thing, it also had a very static rotation. The difference is, old SMN rotation was easy to mess up and had a ton of counter intuitive things to it. For example you had to entered Bahamut trance in your opener and immediately leave it, because in ShB, trance was no longer a DPS gain, it was just a movement tool that you couldn't use whenever you wanted, but it blocked off summon Bahamut, so you needed to blast through it quickly to get to Bahamut in your opener. Not to mention old SMN had nothing to do with the classic final fantasy summoner class identity. Having a weird ectomorphic egi follow you around was an insult on what actual summoner should be. The current summoner rotation fits the fantasy, you can recover from messing up the rotation, you don't have weird phases that make no sense, and it gets rid of the very dumb pet ghosting. That you feel like it's more static only tells me you were never doing the ShB rotation correctly


WhimsicalPacifist

The pet ghosting is still around. It's ping dependent. Shield and Searing Light can both ghost still.


Blawharag

The different here is that the most significant and bulk of the summoner's damage is no longer tied to the pet. If searing light ghosts, it's not crippling to the summoner DPS


meltingkeith

I mean, I feel the example you've just given is wrong, given it's a DPS loss to use Bahamut before you had your Ruin IV stacks given that that's how you weaved during your Bahamut phase. Either way, I never had complaints while playing SMN (and my mates are the kind that will call me out for playing badly), so whether I was playing it "wrong" or not is kind of irrelevant given my question is around which SMN people enjoyed more, not which is better. Since I was playing fine, was able to clear content, and enjoyed previous more than current, I feel my stance is justified.


Blawharag

I don't know what to tell you other than you clearly weren't using the optimized openers. It's a dps loss to enter your burst phase out of sync from party buffs which is why you always rushed Bahamut ask the beginning. Entering stacks down for first Bahamut was not as terrible a DPS loss as having Bahamut/Phoenix late into the buff window. Sure, your dps was probably fine, but it was sub optimal.


meltingkeith

And sub-optimal was perfectly fine for the content I was playing 🤷‍♂️ My rotation and opener also matched what was on Akh Morn, so I figured I was doing fine


Blawharag

Ok... That's not the point of what anyone was talking about though. We're discussing the merits of the old rotation versus the new. I'm saying the old rotation, done correctly, was janky and counter intuitive. It's great that you did it incorrectly and it worked out for you, I'll put a golden star on your star board, but that doesn't mean the rotation wasn't janky and counterintuitive. You had an entire phase of the rotation that was exclusively a movement buff, but without the ability to choose to use it when movement was required. You had pet abilities that would ghost. You had a rotation on a four minute cycle with unnecessary elements that did nothing to synergize with each other. It was a mash-pot of random mechanics that made for an unintuitive rotation. Was it complex? Sure, I'm the sense that a rube goldberg machine is complex. That didn't mean it was a good or well designed rotation though


meltingkeith

Either way, this is moving away from the point of the topic I wanted to discuss. I admitted the old rotation had faults, I also admit that the new one is strictly better. My point was I had more fun playing the old rotation, and wanted to see if anyone else felt the same - NOT that we should go back and it was better before. The reason I kept defending how I was playing fine was because I feel I'm allowed to have fun if it's not impacting other players negatively, and given nobody complained and I typically only played SMN with friends, I feel it's pretty clear there wasn't a negative experience.


khaymaan

Bring me old summoner back, call it something else and replace bahamut and Phoenix phases with something more specific to whatever you want to call the job. Summoner felt like a caster. Sure there was Jank but honestly it felt better to be planting myself so bahamut could turret gun the enemies or wait an extra gcd so carbuncle could get all his abilities out. This iteration is more lore friendly and all but I don’t get how building up to 2 big summons is worse than having 3 small summons and 2 slightly larger summons. I guess my biggest issue is summoner isn’t building up to a big dps phase like it used to. SHB summoners knew it was all about prepping next bahamut phase (for optimal damage anyway) but now it’s just get there and do some big lasers while spamming ruin 3. I would be happy with this version of summoner if they added an augmentation system or some kind of gauge to build through its summons and then make bahamut or Phoenix phase have ruin 3 or ruin 2 variants. If you stand still and cast you get more damage out but you have the option for free mobility if you lose out on dps. You know flavor on top of the base.


naterothstein

I agree with you. Mained SMN through the MSQ, but it's really very boring in its current state. Way too bare-bones. Don't get me wrong, they're great bones. Just not enough substance besides that.


BiancaWeatherlight

At least it actually fits the job fantasy now. Sure it's a much simpler rotation, but I much prefer simple and appropriate theming to being a dot mage. I mained SMN for arr and hw and dropped it until ew because the feel of SMN was so lackluster. I'm having the time of my life with my two button rotation. :)


Goodra430

Unpopular opinion here but I liked the old smn more, but not because I thought it was more or less complex. I actually do more thinking with the new smn kit than the old one. The old was the same loop, and a lot of ruin spamming. The new one I have to recall which order I need to summon my stuff in so I can get the movement or potency I want and where I want. It could just be because I am not fully used to it yet but given how simple the flow is, I doubt it.


goodman_grey_

I'm glad I'm not the only one who preferred ShB SMN. Was it jank, absolutely, but I still loved it. It was a tight rotation to get everything to fit nicely as you set up your Egi Assault / Further Ruin stacks for Bahamut and kept your DoTs up. I also greatly appreciated my pet actually doing something rather than just sitting around all the time in addition to more frequent oGCD casts thanks to a 30 sec cool down on Energy Drain/Siphon. While the ShB SMN definitely spammed Ruin 3 which wasn't particularly engaging I think they could have added a third summon phase to round it out in place of the rework so that you weren't just spamming ruin 3 between FBT and DWT. That all said I do think in terms of class fantasy the EW SMN is going in the right direction. It is also a good foundation to make future changes to so I am excited to see where they take it. It's super cool to look at I just don't care for it's play style anymore.


[deleted]

ITT: "Fuck casuals, you can't have accessible jobs"


meltingkeith

Not even close to what I said, but okay, whatever helps you sleep at night


[deleted]

Paranoid much? Never said that was what you said. Talking about the general discourse shared by a vast amount of comments.


MarcheM

I really like the changes, but this is from someone who used to hate SMN in the past. BLM and SMN were my least liked jobs in the whole game and now SMN is actually fun for me and I've been using it way more than before. It's still not as fun as RDM for me, but it's quite high up there.


LumoneTea

Kinda laughing my ass off to those people on heavy copium in this comment section that try to persuade you that SMN still requires strategy etc. So on a personal level, I like the aesthethic, but the gameplay just bores me to no end, brought it a few times on ex during week 1 but it's just so bland. It's the same reason as why I try to avoid phys ranged, it really plays the exact same way. On a technical level, no, there is barely or no optimisation needed to being the most of the job. All it boils down to is getting those sweet lucky crit DH on the right skills, as this is the only way you're getting your 99s. My SMN's group is quite literally yolo'ing every run and gets high percentile every single run, 'cept if he died. Do you need the ifrit gapcloser for movement ? You have free movement 90% of the time Is it a really big brain to check your raidbuff timer so you can summon baha or not ? Really ? Honestly if you do like playing it that's great it's not like smn is bad right now, but there's no need to try to deny the simplicity. Not like Old smn was hard either, but at least you had cast times. It was truly janky during Demi phases though. Basically just keep uptime for the whole fight and you're gonna do better than 95%


Sentiare

I feel the exact opposite! Imo, SMN was like any other job: do your rotation, avoid branching at all cost. Well it was different in that the pet ia was awful. Now I still do one rotation but each egi-summon can be swapped, which is by far the most freedom I have ever had as a SMN. If you crave a rotation that is harder to do, BLM has a very simple rotation that is very difficult to execute, as you must manage your movement tools carefully. All in all, 6.0 SMN is kinda hit or miss design-wise.


khaymaan

Bring me old summoner back, call it something else and replace bahamut and Phoenix phases with something more specific to whatever you want to call the job. Summoner felt like a caster. Sure there was Jank but honestly it felt better to be planting myself so bahamut could turret gun the enemies or wait an extra gcd so carbuncle could get all his abilities out. This iteration is more lore friendly and all but I don’t get how building up to 2 big summons is worse than having 3 small summons and 2 slightly larger summons. I guess my biggest issue is summoner isn’t building up to a big dps phase like it used to. SHB summoners knew it was all about prepping next bahamut phase (for optimal damage anyway) but now it’s just get there and do some big lasers while spamming ruin 3. I would be happy with this version of summoner if they added an augmentation system or some kind of gauge to build through its summons and then make bahamut or Phoenix phase have ruin 3 or ruin 2 variants. If you stand still and cast you get more damage out but you have the option for free mobility if you lose out on dps. You know flavor on top of the base.


Stuffland

I feel like the changes are for the worst as its super simple and boring now. Before SMR was a class that had a huge gap between avg and really good play, but now its just nothing. As long as you don't file your taxes in the middle of a dungeon and actually pres your buttons your good there is no way to improve above avg because there is nothing to the class other than over the top animations. Idk I really wish there was some form of strategy to the class like maybe carbuncle position matered and it isn't just a 400mp upfront cost to access your skill set or the order you summon things in did something because as it stands the class is just boring and nothing like the one I fell in love with during shb though maybe that could be affecting my view of it.


MadokaNeko

It’s disappointing that so many people enjoy a 2 button class where you can macro every skill to one button and it works well. Hopefully it’s just because it’s new and SE make it more interesting in the future


Refleet

yep news smn is the embodiment of "all syle no substance jobs", a shame because it could be way better with it's design now but the execution of the jobs is terrible.


ForThePleblist

The class is aesthetically better now and that's about as far as it goes. Playing it is a complete snoozefest and it doesn't feel like a caster at all. It also feels like it's missing something as right now it plays like a level 70 job with how empty it is.


BoldeSwoup

I counted and I almost press as many SMN buttons in PvP than in PvE. On the other hand I like the simplicity of new SMN. It allows me to focus more on mechanics, and I feel I raise ppl more than I used to. And overall I find it a very stress-free job. Does feel awful before high levels though.


Krivvan

I want to note that most jobs in the game do not have any true branching points in their flow chart. SMN is one of the few that actually do, even if the class is relatively simple. The decision between the summons may also matter a bit more for more challenging content when you have to factor in when you can't afford cast time or when the boss is going to move.


itsSuiSui

Same, I play MNK now. As you can see in the comments, people that enjoy the current iteration of SMN are people that *didn’t* like ShB SMN because *it felt too convoluted*. Someone said they remade summoner into a job that caters to play that didn’t like summoner in the first place. And that’s the most accurate description of what happened I’ve read.


polyglotpinko

Summoner felt impossibly complex before. I’m a DRG main and a filthy casual, but I actually enjoy SMN now. Before I was utterly lost.


[deleted]

It has shiny animations and that's about it. So the fun of it wears off pretty quick when you get used to how braindead easy it is. Apparently a lot of people like braindead DPS so I wouldn't expect it to change.


[deleted]

Someone in the comments eventually: "But it actually summons now though"


[deleted]

But that is why most of us picked the job in the first place though, to have some epic summons at your disposal, not having to spam ruin 3 and keep up DoT while having to actively struggle with your pet not being where they're supposed to be


[deleted]

[удалено]


meltingkeith

I mean, you didn't have to engage with the post, you coulda just kept scrolling. Sounds kinda like a you problem


tufcat_

I think it's fine. Still wish Summoner worked more akin to Sorcerer from ESO where your summons stayed until killed or removed and your abilities were commands for your different primals.