The goal of changes (SE's SMN concept)

[Wiseman40]

I can't find the releases from SE concerning exactly what they want SMN to be.

By making pacts with the legendary "avatars," these heretic mages have unlocked the secrets to the forbidden magic of Vana'diel.

is what the official FFXI site reads. Obviously this tells nothing about what SMN is supposed to do.

Historically, summoners in the FF series are massive AoE damage plus some support.

We do that. >.> (Although to use the word massive we'd have to 2-hour)

However, we're obviously more sough-after for our support than our DD until endgame.

No one invites a BLM to a party to make use of their /WHM, but virtually all BLM sub WHM. It's the best choice, but doesn't define the job.

I found myself often hoping they 'free up' our subjob.
When I think about it, it's probably never going to happen. /WHM will likely 'always' be the greatest subjob for SMN, just as it has 'always' been the greatest subjob for BLM. What I am hoping, though, is that changes find a way of getting us invites based on the SMN part rather than the /WHM part, in a similar way to BLM.

This is not to say I want us changed into pure DD or anything.

I am starting to wonder, though, what the exact goals of SE are in regard to the job.

Some people say SMN is broken. Actually, SMN does everything it could have been expected to do based on the FF series already. We just can't do it often.

Once a fight we have some burst damage, then we support for the rest of it.

This is how summoners have worked in just about every FF series game!

SE is very afraid of SMN becoming too powerful. The thing is, there would be some simple fixes by simply reducing avatar perpetuation cost just a little.

End game we're already just fine. People only really complain about having to level SMN.

[Malacite]

Even endgame is sorta screwed up. The lv 70 BP's actually do more damage than Astral Flow. That's messed IMO... (RNG has the same problem with EES ><)


I'd personally like to see a nice fat boost to avatars. Not to the point that SMN is broken, but that they can at least be left out to attack the mob rather than just feed it loads of TP for crap damage. A SMN should be able to melee for more than it's pet @ - @ SMN is on the opposite end of the spectrum from DRG here and ought to play like it.


It'd be great if it was a more attractive sub too. What if BLM could go /SMN more often and still be able to do a decent cure on the side, or get in 2 MB's or have the avatar use a physical BP to open/close a skillchain for them to MB on?

[Akashimo]

On the note of SC with pet sub.... Drk/smn in the 3-10 grin, Carby + Slice = <3 ^^

[Rain_Blade]

Historically, summoners in the FF series are massive AoE damage plus some support.

Well in this case (meaning in this game), our only damaging AoEs is Thunderspark and 2 hours. =(

[Necropolis]

The best subjob for blm is never /whm. The best sub is /rdm and in some situation /nin. Both of those subs give us what we want to do, which is increase damge and/or keep us alive. /Whm however is the best sub for a party.

In the parties that I have had on blm while leveling to 75, I found myself often spending more MP on cures than actual damaging spells.

The problem with summoner is not so much a lack of damage from other sources, but really just a lack of healers to be found. If you were to be invited to a party with a rdm and whm already present, you'd find you'd spen much less time healing and more time doing what a summoner was designed to do. However, many party leaders do no invite smns as DDs. They'd much rather invite another war or some such job.

Smns are often looked to as a giant MP bucket with cure3. So thats what they get invited for. It's not a design flaw so much on SE's part, but peoples perception. I think a lot of this comes from the trend to min/max everything. The all mighty parser tells us what jobs are the best DDs. However, most parsers don't show pet damage, so to the mindless mob, a smn contributes no damage.

I'm certainly not arguing that a SMN should be out damaging heavy DD and also have the ability to support a party with wards; but I think that thier damage is often over looked and they don't see the support buffs as enough incentive to invite them.

As for the comment that a smn should melee for more than the pet; I'd have to disagree. You're summoning a god! You mean to tell me a light staff wield by an incantor will outparse a god?! I do believe however a few tweaks to avatar acc/att wouldn't hurt the job any.

[Armando]

I'd personally like to see a nice fat boost to avatars.

Agreed. It's totally lame as hell how SMNs just call avatars for one ability and then dismiss it, because their melee damage isn't worth the MP cost of keeping them out.

[Lucky7]

I have to say that in my short time around these boards it took me a while to understand why RDM and SMN get always stuck with the healing job while BLM and BLU are never requested to heal (at least from all I've read). If you look at a poll/questionnaire in the RDM forums you'll see that the majority of them are just healing. It seems that it is the same way for SMN (at least during leveling). I did read a post by TM pointing the many things that he does with his RDM (was good to see that there are still people playing the job for more than heals), but I haven't seen anything like that for SMN.
Like in many other MMOs there is a shortage of true healers (whm), so other supports jobs that can heal will always end up healing. BLM does enough DD to escape this, but why BLU doesn't heal is unknown to me (I guess that is my ignorance of the job).
Anyway, like you point out, from FF history we know that SMN is an amazing job. Too bad that is a hassle to level since the community already decided beforehand what you'll be doing while leveling.

[Necropolis]

BLM does enough DD to escape this, but why BLU doesn't heal is unknown to me (I guess that is my ignorance of the job).
Anyway, like you point out, from FF history we know that SMN is an amazing job. Too bad that is a hassle to level since the community already decided beforehand what you'll be doing while leveling.

BLM are on occasion invited to main heal; I often refuse those invites since if I wanted to heal I'd seek on whm.

However BLU doesn't heal as often because of the people playing the job. You have a finite amount of inventory space; and as such you can only carry around so much gear. The people that choose to play blu typically level it as a DD job and ignore gear for more mp/mnd and such that would enhance the party all together. I have seen a few BLU main heal, and they are typcally the people that have leveled whm before and have the gear and support job to pull it off. Now that the standard has been set, party leaders look at a seeking blu and a DD as opposed to a possible main healer.

SMN gets pigeon-holed into the roll since they can also give other ward buffers in addition to main healing; not neccessarily right, but it's there none the less.

[Telera]

It is quite a hassle when there's a shortage of white mages that most party leads tend to invite the summoner as someone else put it as a big MP bucket with Cure 3. Yeah, they'd rather just stick one of us in there and then go find another random DD to round out the party. And while I don't mind main healing, it certainly does become boring and pointless to me to be a 'summoner' when for 90% of the 60 levels of it, I was playing jury-rigged white mage.

However, the rare party where you get in with a rdm and whm already there, and you are allowed to *be* a summoner, that's when people get an appreciation for the other things we can do. I had a couple of parties like that on the way to 60, especially the last few levels up to that point. And after disband I had a couple of people say 'Wow, I never knew summoner could be so useful.'

There is a lot we can do if the rest of the required jobs are around to give us space to do it. Early on I was opening/closing SC's. Mid levels and up I was doing a good bit of MB'ing. And in my very last party before I quit, we had a whm and a rdm/brd, so I had Carby out for extra heals/buffs and Meteorite. When he had TP that did a decent amount of damage.

I think the problem really is the avatars' regular ol' melee damage isn't worth the MP cost of leaving them out to gain said TP to do better on BPs. As they are now, they're basically just feeding the mobs lots of TP that forces more work on the healers in the group.

[Malacite]

As they are now, they're basically just feeding the mobs lots of TP that forces more work on the healers in the group.

Pretty much. Even being invited to DD though, SMN just do not keep up with "dedicated" DD jobs like DRG until 70+. And even then, I've had a few PT where the SMN was there specifically to DD, and while those BPs were murder (both on the mob and the SMN's MP... seriously, doing 1 of those every fight takes it's toll quickly), it was mostly loldmg between the big spikes

[Necropolis]

Pretty much. Even being invited to DD though, SMN just do not keep up with "dedicated" DD jobs like DRG until 70+. And even then, I've had a few PT where the SMN was there specifically to DD, and while those BPs were murder (both on the mob and the SMN's MP... seriously, doing 1 of those every fight takes it's toll quickly), it was mostly loldmg between the big spikes

But keep in mind that if they kept up with other dedicated DD jobs, no one would want the other DD jobs. Can a drg stoneskin a party? Haste? paralyze? Lower evasion and defense of mobs? They can not. I agree a bit more damage wouldn't help the job be played the way it was intended; but if it's damage was equal to a DD class while still having support abilities would tilt the scales in favor of smn over any other DD.

Imagine an avatar that could tank traditional party mobs. We wouldn't need a pld, nin, or any other DD. Smn would be the end all be all job class for damage and surviability. All this while subbing whm and never using a weapon themselves.

Buy I conceed a few alterations to Avatar melee damage would be of help to the job.

[Wiseman40]

The idea of avatars being out for a while is new to the FF series. In FFXI and in the more recent RPGs (I believe X-2 onward) avatars stay out, but anything older than that and they just show up, nuke or support, then leave.

SE wanted to change this in FFXI and made avatars something closer to a consistent pet. This has definitely backfired, however.

Even when an avatar becomes 'free' you can't heal while they're out, which ends up being to avatars' cost. Plus, the only rewards for keeping the avatars out are the very minor DoT of their melee, and the fact that you don't have to endure the casting time of resummoning them to use another BP. This, as other posters have said, lends the enemy TP more than it deals damage due to low melee damage ratings on avatars.

I have noticed that I gain more XP faster by never summoning an avatar than having one out all of the time.

That's just wrong... sigh. Now, if I bring out avatars just for BPs and dismiss, it's better than never having an avatar out at all, but that's ONLY if there's a dedicated healer. If I am main healing, any avatar use whatsoever only hinders the flow of chain pulling.

I can't think of anything that SE can do in terms of minor changes to the job to eliminate this.

[IfritnoItazura]

I have to say that in my short time around these boards it took me a while to understand why RDM and SMN get always stuck with the healing job while BLM and BLU are never requested to heal (at least from all I've read).

Depending on the party, BLMs do get asked to shoulder a good deal of curing. In fact, JP players on BLM just assume they should be curing, from my experience--they all carry light staff and dump cures like, well, JP WHMs.

As for BLUs, every JP search comment I've seen for them says "/WHM (and others) available". It's not so much that BLUs don't get asked, it's more like NA/EU BLUs don't prepare themselves for the healer role, so there's no point in asking.

If you look at a poll/questionnaire in the RDM forums you'll see that the majority of them are just healing.

It's exaggeration, at least before merit levels. Many RDM players just despise the main healer role, and taking on it once makes them unhappy for days.

From Lv.70 (1k from using exp scroll during Maat fight) to Lv.72 (16k in!) took my RDM four parties. I was "main healer" once; the other three had WHMs--one of those even had a JP BLM who cured more than me.

And the one time I was "main healer"? The PLD tank was the co-healer, and probably did just as much curing as I did, if not more. (Heck, he has better MP recovery than I do, with Parade Gorget. On top of that, he even carried a Dark Staff for resting. XD )

I was the main enfeebler in each and every one of those parties.

In any case, I don't have problem with main healing on RDM, but more often than not, there is a WHM, SMN, or even BLM in party who gladly be main/co-healer.


* * *

SMN is flexible enough as is. So what if avatar melee sucks? My RDM's melee ability vs. exp targets is nothing to gloat about, either. The problem is that the "SMN in party" story doesn't have a "hook" to it--there isn't a compelling reason to get one beyond "We need a healer... Guess SMN will do..."

PLD used to be like that, and what finally made it popular (again) for party invite was the combination of Auto-Refresh and Shield Mastery update, along with a sudden drop of tank players. (I would argue that the drop in tanking population was more of a boon for the up and coming PLDs than the update, however. heh.)

These days, though, it's hard to say what would be the right way to enhance SMN for exp parties. Do we not have enough DD ability already? Not enough buffs? Not enough enfeebling choices? Not enough healing options? Not enough kinds of MP recovery? The answer to each pretty much is "No--we have enough of everything already."

Then, where and how can S-E add a "hook" strong enough to entice party invite, yet won't be game-balance bending?

* * *

Besides, what do you think would happen if Avatars' perpetuation cost are lowered? "Oh cool! The SMN has more MP to cure now!"

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

It is quite a hassle when there's a shortage of white mages that most party leads tend to invite the summoner as someone else put it as a big MP bucket with Cure 3.

A hassle is when there are no WHMs seeking and every RDM, BLU and SMN that can main heal refuses to do so. And every last one of those jobs can, I don't care what excuse you whip up.

A hassle is getting invited for something you can't do. SMNs can main heal, just like CORs can pull and WARs can tank. Refusing those functions is refusing roles you can fill and that's a hassle to others, not you. If you're not prepared to fulfill these roles, you're not playing the jobs to their fullest potentials.

A hassle is not being told what your role was prior to arriving at camp. Its a given WHM will be a main healer, it is not a given that SMN, BLU or RDM always will be. Inform those jobs of their PT role before they come to camp. Likewise, it is not always a given that a BRD or COR will pull for your PTs, inform them that is what you need, don't assume its what they'll do.

If I'm COR/RNG while seeking and you say nothing, that is what I'm going to come as and I'm going to be pissed at you when you ask me to pull. But not as pissed as I could be when I was seeking RDM/BLM, got an invite and trekked all the way out Valley of Sorrows to see the WHM warp themselves out and main heal dropped in my lap. This happens all the time and its why RDM and SMNs are so uptight about main healing in the first place.

If you're a leader and the invitee asks what their role is or what the party set-up is - answer them. Answering it does not mean we will turn the invite down, we just want to know what we're being invited to do. Don't give us the silent treatment because we will just assume the subjob we had was fine.

[Telera]

I meant that it was a hassle that we even have a white mage shortage. Not that I would refuse to heal. I've never refused to heal. Ever. I even said explicitly I don't mind it. It gets boring, but I don't mind it.

I have, however, been exceedingly pissed off by coming as a replacement to a party that still has a white mage, and the minute they see me cast a Cure to help out, suddenly I stop seeing cures from them at all. There's a sudden wash of Dia and Banish spam and I find myself shouldering all the cures lest someone die.

That happened all too often. I'm not here for you to ride on my MP and skill up, sweetheart. I was trying to co-heal and help you, but I'm not going to do it alone while you level Divine. If you had asked, I might have agreed, but just assuming because I tossed a cure on the side? That's a guaranteed kiss my ass situation right there.