Dev Tracker: Discussion (Old)

[Shenrien]

Nobody said that SMN's solo ability should be a priority over the enmity adjustments but we literally can't solo shit anymore unless we kite for hours. Fuck that.
We can still solo but it takes forever, how does that make any sense? Why is the job always going backwards when the whole game is moving on?
And do you really think they checked all the possible variables when making these adjustments, especially when it comes to a job that is always ignored no matter what?
We've been asking for better DPS for years, I doubt it's coming even if they fucked up everything now.

Play some other job then, you've got 21 other jobs you can make your main, try and pick one that SE doesn't hate.

[Gokulo]

Play some other job then, you've got 21 other jobs you can make your main, try and pick one that SE doesn't hate.

Great advice dude

[Damane]

Great advice dude

It really is the best advice, even without the Enmity adjustments all that smn had goign for it was PD, that is semi-gone now too... The job is flawed from the grounds up and needs an overhaul, until then it stays garbage. Its the bottom tier of all Jobs, miles away before it could even reach one of the other bottom tier jobs.

[Byrthnoth]

I don't know about that. Summoner was useful for some things before the update:
* Feeling lazy and want to kill Arch Ultima/Omega? Go summoner!
* Feeling lazy and want to do WoE? Go Summoner!
* Want to provide buffs on a non-traditional job? Go Summoner! (45 damage Enfire, permanent Warcry, 20%+ DA)
* Interested in very slowly killing something without ever giving it TP? Go Summoner!

[Shenrien]

You forgot Want to lag the piss out of anyone for no reason, go Summoner w/ all your friends.

[Ophannus]

^I lol'd

[Kaisha]

You forgot Want to lag the piss out of anyone for no reason, go Summoner w/ all your friends.

I believe GEO takes the cake on that one these days.

People actually SMN-burned the Arch Limbus bosses? How many of them does that take exactly?

[Byrthnoth]

I believe GEO takes the cake on that one these days.

People actually SMN-burned the Arch Limbus bosses? How many of them does that take exactly?

It used to take about 5-6 summoners. Now I'm not sure I'd try it.

[Seha]

People actually SMN-burned the Arch Limbus bosses? How many of them does that take exactly?

Sigh, my ls on Phoenix only did it this way <_< even Proto-Ultima and Odin I...bunch of summoners and beastmasters. It was so anticlimatic lol.

[Damane]

I don't know about that. Summoner was useful for some things before the update:
* Feeling lazy and want to kill Arch Ultima/Omega? Go summoner!
* Feeling lazy and want to do WoE? Go Summoner!
* Want to provide buffs on a non-traditional job? Go Summoner! (45 damage Enfire, permanent Warcry, 20%+ DA)
* Interested in very slowly killing something without ever giving it TP? Go Summoner!

I give you the WoE thing and the "lag everybody else" thing from shenrien. The rest is just meh

[Damane]

Well there you have it, SE buffed mages reward in reives and nerfed melee reward in reives. How will BLU stand now there, that can do both ?

[Shenrien]

From my observation on my mules, spamming cures, buffs, and debuffing mobs now reward you a small amount of points only like 200-300/evaluation, they are still better off saying fuck it and running to the roots and hammering them down with other players but its not necessary now that they can meet the criteria to get logs/rocks at the end of each Reive.

>_> But.. I guess my situation is a bit different from others as my mule will always have SV marchx2 + minuet for every fight.. not everyone has that luxury for beating on stuff.

[pancakesandsex]

Has anyone tried adding -enmity gear to their bp set to see if it solves the problem? Seriously.

[Buffy]

Don't know exactly why they had to reduce melee attacks, but in general if the points distribution is more balanced, then I'm fine with it.

[Kincard]

The message explaining that experience points and bayld were not gained due to the minimum value not being reached will no longer appear when an evaluation occurs.

I don't know why this made me lol. I guess it comes from that cynical MMO design philosophy- only ever tell your player he did fucking awesome and make a giant beam of light shoot out of a crotch when he levels up, and don't display a big red text box saying "YOU SUCK ASS, YOU WIN NOTHING."

[Mahoro]

It really is the best advice, even without the Enmity adjustments all that smn had goign for it was PD, that is semi-gone now too... The job is flawed from the grounds up and needs an overhaul, until then it stays garbage. Its the bottom tier of all Jobs, miles away before it could even reach one of the other bottom tier jobs.

PD may be nerfed, but people will still bring SMN to the same events they did before the patch:

-On ADL, the nerfed duration only makes a true difference on the number of clones your group can kill if the mob keeps splitting and the group keeps choosing the wrong clone. Even without PD, however, Shock Squall utility alone makes the job worthwhile to bring.

-In Legion, for those who use the PD strategy instead of the SCH/BLM strategy, mobs melt faster now so the nerfed PD duration matters less. Mind you, I'm not debating the merits of the PD strategy over the SCH/BLM strategy.

-Limbus ally utility remains unchanged except in the case of allies consisting ONLY of SMNs.

-For Odin v.2, 1 or 2 SMN's can still be useful for the ~50+ seconds of PD when the ally is ready to zerg from either 50% or 25%.

Adding to these the functions Byrth listed, the job may be flawed and "bottom tier" in terms of damage, but in terms of utility it remains heavily desired at several endgame events.

[Slycer]

Just FYI the only post on the JP side was basically the same as today's update notes about reive so I'm not gonna bother translating.

[Spira]

Again it isn't a smn nerf it is a change to all enmity which makes it harder for everyone especially jobs that were horrible keeping hate to begin with. Saying this is a smn nerf is like saying multihit ws tp update was a drg nerf

this is definitely a SMN nerf. against anything harder, which is basically ALL of the new expansion, there is nothing a smn can do to prevent themselves from gaining enmity relative to the avatar. unless you're telling me a SMN should summon, assault and do nothing else - I'm going to bet even then you''re going to take hate with avatar losing enmity from damage taken. countermeasures? you have

1) avatar does more damage. considering the amount of damage its already doing, its still losing enmity too fast to keep up
2) avatar taking less damage. they already take 1/2 damage on physical attacks vs a player before factoring in player gear.
3) issuing another BP. we can only spike hate from damage once every 45s. even if we could issue BPs faster, the problem of high enmity loss remains. also, more CE generated in the process.

This problem is specific to SMN. No other pet class was designed to have the master stay on the back line while the pet takes the hits and deals the damage up front. And if the pet cannot secure hate away from the master in any normal circumstance at all, then the design fails. The jobs fails to be able to do what it is intended to do - and no other job has been affected this way.

To put things in perspective, if SE thought such a design for the job wasn't intended, it wouldn't have waited 10 years to nerf it, and indirectly through an enmity change that was never an issue for avatars to begin with. Shit is broken.

They could probably just reverse the enmity changes to not apply to pets.

edit: this is also an issue for BST, PUP and DRG, but moreso for SMN and BST because the way the jobs are played / meant to be played rely heavily on enmity mechanics between the master and pet, whether in solo or party situations.

[Byrthnoth]

I would recommend not taking this route. Currently melee are capable of dealing up to ~600 damage per second when fully buffed. You need to do ~60 damage per second in order to gain VE. Avatars come in around 35 damage per second in a realistic estimation. Doubling avatar damage would solve the problem and really not cause balance issues, considering that 10 Avatars would have equivalent damage output to a single buffed melee. I'd recommend doing it this way:
1) Decrease minimum BP delay from 45 seconds to 30 seconds (I'd also recommend lowering the base to 45 seconds)
2) Increases avatar base damage by a factor of ~2 and decrease their delay to 200~240 instead of its current 280~320.

This should approximately double Avatar DPS and allow them to build VE/CE. It will also dramatically help Summoner versatility-wise, and it might become a solo job even for people that aren't incredibly bored. I mean, I can solo VT monsters in the new area on Dancer without any problems. I could also do it on Summoner without any problems, but I doubt I'd be seeing Chain 5s because it'd be really fucking slow.

[Spira]

ok. thx for the math.

i guess if its any consolation, this enmity change is the last straw that broke the SMNs back. It literally screams out PLEASE FIX ME now.
I'd welcome shorter BP timers and higher base damage any day

that said.. theres probably a need to overcompensate if they're gonna take such steps.. because against HNMs and the like, avatar melee damage suffers far greater, and we haven't factored in things like terrorize, paralyze, petrify, stun, and so on. granted these are factors normal players will also be exposed to, avatars in particular have no recourse short of temp items that remove such status effects, or resummoning, which circumvents instead of resolves a hate decay problem