Job Adjustments - What Would You Do?

The difference is melee jobs need to be up close and personal to do any dmg, which carries risk.

Throwing pets at something and spamming a BP button from 20' away carries no risk.

And smn is not used (for dmg) because it was too strong and now every content has a BP wall. You know this already.

It could be worse. Smn could get a "you need to be next to avatar to use BPs" nerf like bst did..

That doesnt equal the job should not get any adjustments, a soft BP wall like what dyna introduced already hard limits its damage potential.

Ideally you soft buff its dmg along with all pets and refocus on its utility, whole lot of smns wards are underpowered/outdated and could push it into a support role that can also provide a bit of damage.

Literally what I suggested two pages ago.

getting rid of its entire offensive side is pretty silly, otherwise sure. Hastega 2 already lasts like 9 minutes i think also, one of a few buffs that scaled well

Having offensive BPs that cannot be used because every content that matters has a BP wall is equally silly, yet here we are.

Hence the dyna wall i mentioned. Which is also what sortie/ody uses i think full powered BP works, but cant spam, smn can still sprinkle its damage in between its support. Seems fine enough, the shitty version of the BP nerf was what some later HTBs did where the 1st HIT of a BP triggered the wall and dropped every hit after by something around 80%

If sortie/ody follow that wall hen it should just be what dyna was, but i think they reverted to dyna/fixed the HTBs, but i seldom use smn to say for sure

Sorry but the issue is not the BP wall. Take an 8 boss sortie for example. Bosses last 15-45 seconds. That means you can do 1-2 BP max. Considering you won't have beast roll and (potentially no GEO since you shoved a SMN in the group) you'll be doing ~20-30k per BP so in the course of a fight you'll do 20-60k damage. Which is realistically 1 WS worth from even a RDM.

Just wanted to set context for the damage we're getting "risk free". Also you'd be lucky if the avatar lives to get a second BP off. Typically they die in 2 hits from the AoEs.

Even if we were doing 99k DMG. It's 1-2 BPs max before the fight ends which maybe lets us get close to what a RDM would do meleeing

Why does smn need to do equal dmg to super-buffed melees.

Just sounds like "make my favourite job stronger pls kthxbai".

This is a ridiculously wild take. Did you time travel here from 2017 still thinking SMN is comparable to fully buffed MEVA'd out melees? The whole "pEtS aRe ExPeNdAbLe" take is terrible these days. Pet jobs are in the gutter horribly. Please try to take a pet job party into sortie and even clear 8 bosses. I'm sure with their expendable pets, they'd just mow down all of bosses and just keep resummoning. /s

Because it's too slow to be a healer, and its kit doesn't do anything special enough to be a buffer. It doesn't get the magic accuracy to be a debuffer, and it doesn't have the magic damage to be worth using for magic bursts.

Damage is the only thing summoner has that makes it worth a slot in a party when party composition matters, and sadly it doesn't do that thing very well. If it could do a lot of damage slowly, or a moderate amount of damage quickly, it'd be set, but it doesn't get either of those.

I mean, if we want to have jobs that are designed exclusively for solo play and nothing else, I guess that's certainly a choice, but considering that trusts mean all jobs can play solo that feels a bit like having a build that specializes in breathing.

Look, if you want to complain about pet jobs sucking, the official forums are that-a-way.

It is what it is.

When the current name of the game is everyone contributes to damage, yeah being very far behind even the weaker DPS jobs(who also provided better buffs to compensate) kinda sucks. That and its just an eaiser path to take as even if you steroid injectd many of smns wards, there's simply not much in their kit that earns them a spot, right now the big niche is similar to bst; wipes TP and bst can still offer other stuff ontop of that and do some dmg ontop of that.

At the core i just think pet jobs are in a terrible spot and always have been when it comes to having to adapt on the fly or just act quickly, reducing content to 6 man just makes that more apparent, smn just happens to be one of them.

Not even asking for equal. Currently we're not even in the same realm. A WHM can out DPS me.

Anyway, not going to argue. You've consistently hated on SMN for a long time. Unsure why, but feel free to continue hating it.

You obviously do not play bst.

Smn has its easy Aeonics niche. Bst has.. spitting for RP.

I wasnt aware we were counting old content as a reasoning

Not all jobs are dd jobs. Pet jobs are pet jobs. Support jobs are support jobs. Healers heal.

You should not expect all jobs to do the same dmg, even if they can do decent dmg under certain circumstances.

The game is situational and there will always be situations where smn is used - mewing for one if you want to keep it at current "end game" content. Pup has tanking adds. Bst has spitting and TP drainkiss, KI when it works.

None of those things are doing dmg.

Smn does not have to do dmg to be useful. Certain people want it to because it's their favourite job. Tough.

SE make the rules not anyone here.

I wouldn't rate SMN nearly as low as BST as far as pet jobs go. SMN has extreme utility that has at least some respect among players, if only people would include it along more. Look at how impressively Papesse plays SMN, because his group has no problem with it because it is so functional and he knows every scenario where it can add value. I think it still comes back to a job stigma problem. You'll invite SMNs for AFAC, prebuffs, unique buffs like Crystal Blessing, healing, hate control (Pacifying Ruby is one of the most underrated abilities in the game, shocked how few people use this). SMN can bypass certain resistances like for example on Ongo, Night Terror deals decent damage without support. Heavenward Howl is busted during Full Moon (Papesse special). Curing Conduit is unique and supportive for a PLD-led healer group, or even if SMN is main healing.

BST suffers from Job stigma worse than SMN does, and I don't think BST can hold a candle to the utility SMN can. They can heal a little, debuff a little, DD reasonably, kinda buff with Killer Instinct, and a couple of unique abilities like Purulent Ooze and TP Drainkiss, but after those, they have smaller group utility, as BSTs pets and job design revolves around making the master better (similar to DRG, but way weaker), while SMN's pet revolves around supporting the entire party in battle. I have more fun playing SMN in groups than I do BST, just because I feel there's more things to do that are valued than what BST can (though I try to be creative, still not respected).

In fact, I just thought about this. We include GEO in Arebati V25 clears for only its buffs (Fury, AGI, Frailty, Bolster). As strong as these buffs are, I can't help but wonder if people aren't just forcing a job in a spot because they haven't thought outside of this box. The GEO is literally putting up bubbles and sitting there with his thumb up his ***, adding no further utility. In an age of Prime weapons, could we not replace GEO with SMN and get more party support? I feel like SMN adds massive utility over GEO in this comp, but nobody thinks this far out to include it.

Imagine 2 Primes in the mix with a COR+RNG. You could use Pacifying Ruby throughout the fight to guarantee they never hit the ceiling. This allows you to also drop Dirge from the COR in favor of a better song, AGI etude? RNG already gets it since it has a natural Dirge in Hover Shot. Or since you're losing GEO, Minuet III

Anywyas, you get a far better WS using primes over Aeonic/Relic weapons, and you can opt to wall each other, because Terminus blows any other WS out of the park (and 3-step Terminus won't make darkness to heal Arebati during aura, unlike Coronach x2). Or RNG can Pinaka, COR can Earp, no wall, more damage, makes up for the loss of GEO. You can even AC Ruby to completely remove the RNG+COR's hate midfight, so they can go HAM. You can give them stuff like Warcry from Ifrit and Crystal Blessing from Shiva to help make up for the lack of Fury/Frailty.

Some other stuff SMN can do in that fight that is invaluable (Papesse bat signal, come clear up my ignorance if I am incorrect here or you tried this):

Tell me again why we include GEO over SMN for certain stuff?
Man, yall need to gtfoh with all that bad rep you give SMN. More player-created problems.

shock squall is freaking amazing but we've not had a stun meta since delve, and won't ever again. still, it works on more things than you might think.

I'm a super scrub SMN and only leveled it because I needed a new job to get cards on, and I wanted job flexibility for Odyssey years ago. I almost never play it because I'm not super versed and comfortable with it on a high level, but every single time I do, I am amazed at how much "hidden" utility it has and how forgotten it has become among players. It's one of my more fun jobs to play, and its super busy if you want it to be. The BP timers get in the way, but I like the fact that it's a choice-driven job where you have to make decisions based on situations, and not just a macro-mashing job where your job is to only do one thing. I think is a very well developed job overall, just needs a few tweaks to modernize it. But the utility is totally there.

We really doing the smn thing again.

All of smns problems are the same as bsts problems. Time wasted calling and recalling pets.

If smn could just USE hastega 2, and crystal blessing, and mew, and enfirega, et all, without calling the pet, they'd be in the meta.

There is no space in the meta for utility. The meta is the exact opposite of utility. Meta is the meta because it's already preplanned out before the fight. utility has no use.

As far as damage. It's just a shittier ranger without astral conduit. No one wants that.

i also said way back than
The groups that use 2-3 KI
Would be the first ones done
Which they were

One of the groups that only did 1 KI
Told me it took them like 15+ attempts on some NM

theoretically you could reduce bp and ready delay low enough to match a hasted phys dd's ws frequency, but that would involve so much work adjusting not only gear, but job point gifts, avatar favor mechasnics, etc. that it is extremely unlikely.

So make them a buffer that can do some damage. Let them put up 3 buffs that lasting 5mins++ with duration, Hastega2+TP Bonus+Attack+20%

My argument wasn't that smn needed to go all-in as a DD, just that it could use similar dmg buffs that all pets need as its dmg has fallen off just as much as them, while refocusing on its utility and bumping the potency on older stuff such as;

ifrits WC is 11~12% at 99 that blocks actual warcry, has a strong enfire but outside of rdm enspell memes its just kinda there
Fenrirs entire buff kit beyond heavensward howl is pretty gimp at its peak, and the one good one is a toss up just due to how fenrirs buffs work.
Diabolos' noctoshield/dream shroud are pitiful for today's level.

For others;
Shiva/garuda are fine just because they are already good baselines
Titans SS is okay for what it is, 245 SS vs a real SS reaching 300~350(with gear) but its aoe, already mentioned its good ward BP
Leviathan has 2 decent debuffs, and a solid aoe heal, that last ward is pretty iffy
Ramuh was already mentioned, plus theres a potent stun on volt strike too
Carby also mentioned (i brought up that hate wipe in the rng thread when v25 arebati was current and was told its recast is too long, was skeptical on that tbh, cant see you hitting the ceiling -that- quickly even spamming sarv) Also has a very strong aoe heal and a not quite but close full erase(6 debuffs not including curse)

Now with all this pocket utility, which ones are you going to use every 20 seconds, give or take an additional with apo, in buukkis example of helping to heal, if you use anything else you just lost that ability to heal for a few seconds, you cant mew and also heal, if you wanted to use a favor you're stuck with that avatar out to make use of it, avatar also would need to be in range and taking any hits which given its pitiful HP pool even with its high DT can be a strain if it has no means of self-healing(such as levi/carby/siren)

idk to me it feels the same as bst to me(though bst has much harsher swapping timers and an inventory burden to their issues), the utility is there but to actually get access to it when you need it is where it gets janky and some of the buffs simply fell off. There's also atomos which is another really nice tool, just not too many areas where a full absorb + aoe buff comes into play since SE doesnt like giving mobs stuff that can be absorbed/dispelled as much anymore and instead opts to just stealing player buffs

Being in meta and being able to fit into end game composition is two different things. I hope none really hope SMN to be in meta. Meta is really 5-6 jobs at most. BLU isn't meta beside Aminon but can be used for many end game activities would be a prime example. SMN is perfectly fine in 8boss Sortie for example. Brd cor DD DD are the core I would say, then you could add whm and GEO, rdm and GEO, rdm and whm, but also smn and whm, smn and GEO etc. Smn has hastega ii which let's you change victory march to something else during no soul voice part. It has crystal blessing which is fantastic buff for almost all best WSs. It has soothing current which is a very good buff if you don't have whm. It has fleet wind in case you don't have DNC, it has heaven ward during the right moon phase, it has also mewing which could be extremely effective with dual MNK setup. It has great favors like 25% da on ifrit. Lastly it can perfect defense twice during the run, ideally for Aita and Gartell. Also SMN would be a healer, buffer and smn buffs lasts like 9 or 10 min. Once applied you can keep them up 100% of the time without much effort.

We used Ruby in triple V15/20/25 RP boss runs back in the day on a couple of the T2s where you could take hate over time from the tank under certain circumstances. The SMN (who was not a pro by any means) would use it occasionally every 2-3 other BPs in his rotation among other things, and he would alternate which DD he used it on. Nobody ever took hate from the tank over the course of 15 minutes, and this was without using it back-to-back. You could just as easily save Apogee for Pacifying Ruby and plant it on the RNG twice, for like a ~40% hate reduction, instantly. Idk, I think its definitely doable, BPs are like 30 second recast without max favor bonus? You wouldn't need to spam it all fight long (though you could for an even faster recast and safer approach)

I would even argue you could push SMN to 9 boss double monk run. Its probably slower than GEO on Aminon itself, but 250tp bonus, 25%DA, 11%attack, mewing once or twice on Aita to make sure it won't tp at all. Perfect def on Gartell. Fleet wind after Triboluex. I think it could be done.

There is one thing that people might do wrong here and think it doesn't work (I did it myself). You might be too far away from the target. I think Carbuncle or SMN or both need to be under 25 or 20 yalms from the target which hate against someone you want to reset.

I've always said how well I think MNK pairs with SMN (or BST Tandem Blow, TP Drainkiss), but I think the problem is there is too much craze with whatever is "the fastest" or "best" among players, and people just roll with that. I've been in plenty of Sortie groups where we wiped to a boss because we were either rushing to deal all of our damage or forgot to do something important (like proc Aita or properly time absorbs on Aminon), where a "slower" more controlled approach like MNK method would have probably resulted in a guaranteed clear.

Sadly, most NA players dont care about a strategy if it is 5-10% slower even if it is 75% safer, because everything is about speed and dps and not consistency (kinda same philosophy with dd focused gear vs defensive). I say NA because I have watched videos and joined other groups like JP, and they prefer unconventional or safer strategies, even if they take slightly longer.