Compendium of Summoner Job Issues

[Rakshaka]

Compendium of Summoner Job Issues

Hi Everyone, veteran Summoner Rakshaka here (been playing for 7.5 years, please forgive my lack of forum posts). With the "New Avatars Are Coming" getting some developer attention (meaning someone's listening to us), I thought I'd put together a list of all current issues with the Summoner job in hopes of getting some issues addressed. This thread isn't meant to present new ideas for improving the job; it's meant to serve as a potential todo list for the developers.

Avatars and Spirits:
The Assault command has no effect if your pet is too far away from you

The range of the Assault command (from the summoner to the target) varies by the model scale of the target.
Example:
The assault range on Black Shuck in the Tier 10 Assault "Better than one" is so short that you can get hit by Gates of Hades while at maximum assaulting range. The assault range on Cerberus in mount zhayolm is so large that at maximum assault range you won't be hit by Gates of Hades. Black Shuck's model size is much smaller than Cerberus'.

Sometimes when your pet is dead, you will not be able to summon another pet. During this time you get a system message stating that you already have a pet. This issue may be caused by the pet dying from a DoT effect.

Pets can glitch and ignore retreat commands. They will retreat for one second and then resume hitting the target, even if the target is attacking the pet and not the summoner

There are no log messages provided when avatar-generated buffs wear off of of avatars or other party members

Spirits:
Spirit spellcasting is easily interrupted. Almost any attack will interrupt them.

Spirit spells are resisted very often. This coincides with the previous issue; they both may be caused by the spirits having a very low magic skill level.

A spirit will re-apply shock, burn etc. even if the monster has it already. This may be because potency of the enfeeble is reduced over time. Either that, or the elemental doesn't check if the monster has the debuff already.

Light spirit does not learn Regen 2, 3, 4 or 5

Light spirit does not learn Cure 6

Light spirit does not learn Curaga 5.

Dark Spirit does not learn Drain 2 or Aspir 2

Dark spirit does not learn Absorb-ACC, or Absorb-TP

Dark Spirit knows stun even though Stun is of the lightning element

Light spirit can only cast on targets that it's facing. Light spirit does not have a face which makes this difficult.

Light spirit behaves differently in Full Moon Fountain. It's able to cast on anyone, no matter which way it's facing, and it's unable to move while casting. (This probably isn't important enough to fix, but thought I'd add it for some cool trivia)

Puppetmasters and beastmasters are able to command their pet to attack without losing the invisible status effect. When summoners use assault, their invisible status effect wears off. Please let summoners use assault without losing the effect of invisible.

Zodiac Ring does not affect Elemental Siphon when used with Light Spirit on Lightsday, or Dark Spirit on Darksday.

Avatars:
The potency of Diabolos' Noctoshield is the same now as it was at level 75. This means that comparitively it's becoming weaker as we gain more levels. Are there any plans to rectify this by scaling Noctoshield's potency past level 75? (It does scale by level before level 75). Many other blood pacts also do not scale past lvl 75.

Thunderspark's range from the avatar to the target is larger than the AOE radius of Thunderspark. This also applies to Ultimate Terror. The aoe range should be extended.

The Blood Pacts Thunderspark, Lunar Roar, Sleepga, Nightmare, Ultimate Terror, and Slowga (and probably others) have a smaller AOE range than ~ga spells. Again, the aoe range should be extended.

Carbuncle and Fenrir are not resistant to their respective elements

No log messages are produced when Lunar Roar removes buffs from enemies.

No log messages are produced when avatar-generated buffs wear off of avatars and party members.

No log messages are produced when avatar-generated enfeebles wear off of enemies.

The extended magic aggro range because of weather is still present in the protocrystals. Meaning, the avatars within the protocrystals will aggro you if you cast magic at twice the normal magic aggro range. This effect of weather was removed from the rest of the zones in the game previously.

The following bullet point of [dev 1239] was not implemented. Avatar's Favor saw no increase in potency. Both the initial and final values of Avatar's Favor were checked after the update; these values matched the values of Avatar's Favor prior to the update.
"The effects of Avatar’s Favor will be increased."

Graphical Bugs:
There are two animations for elemental siphon; the first animation shows MP coming out of a target, the second shows MP going into the target. The first animation currently targets the caster when it should be targeting the elemental. Refer to Mana Cede to see how the animation should occur; the first animation should occur on one entity (smn or pet), and the second animation should occur on the other entity (smn or pet).

Garuda's Aero 2 Blood Pact uses the animation of Aeroga 2, not Aero 2.

Carbuncle's Holy Mist animation is the same as Holy 2.

Pavor Nocturnus uses the same animation as the Death spell.

Fenrir's right eye is not modeled correctly. Compare the right eye with the left eye while looking at him from the front. Beneath the right eye, the model goes into fenrir's body, instead of creating the red area underneath the eye that exists under the left eye.

Ramuh's Thunderstorm animation has two parts, the vertical lightning, and the glowing circles on the ground. The vertical lightning rotates clockwise, while the glowing circles that should be aligned with the vertical lightning rotate counter clockwise. The rotation direction of either the columns or the circles is inverted.

Ramuh's Judgment Bolt animation has four parts, the inner vertical lightning, the outer vertical lightning, the inner glowing circles on the ground, and the outer glowing circles on the ground.The inner vertical lightning rotates clockwise, and the outer lightning rotates counter clockwise. However, the inner circles rotate counter clockwise, and the outer circles rotate clockwise, which is the opposite direction of their corresponding vertical lightning columns. Again, the rotation direction of either the columns or the circles is inverted.


Please add to this list:
I know I'm forgetting some issues as I'm writing this. Please contribute any quirks, bugs, or problems that you know of that's related to the SMN job. Hopefully someone important will take notice and fix the issues that we're providing.

Gogo SMN!

[Soundwave]

Sometimes when your pet is dead, you will not be able to summon another pet. During this time you get a system message stating that you already have a pet.

Pets can glitch and ignore retreat commands. They will retreat for one second and then resume hitting the target, even if the target is attacking the pet and not the summoner

1: Yes
2: This is because you still have hate on the mob?

[Rakshaka]

1: Yes
2: This is because you still have hate on the mob?

2: No, I'm talking about the following situation. Your avatar is attacking a monster. You tell your avatar to Retreat. It pulls back for a second towards you, then engages the mob again. At no point in time is the monster ever targeting you. The monster is always attacking the avatar.

[Korpg]

2: No, I'm talking about the following situation. Your avatar is attacking a monster. You tell your avatar to Retreat. It pulls back for a second towards you, then engages the mob again. At no point in time is the monster ever targeting you. The monster is always attacking the avatar.

Not always. If the avatar has just a little bit more hate than you, it will obey your command. But if you pull hate from the avatar (usually this happens when you retreat an avatar who's first hit was really a miss) then the avatar will attack the mob to establish hate away from you. This feature is one of the SMN's main abilities and also allows the use of "Carby kiting."

Just let the avatar get a hit in before retreating, or retreat the avatar from a larger distance. Be aware, though, that some mobs have a higher enmity loss than others, meaning that you can shed a lot more hate from being hit on those types of mobs. So you might have to wait for the avatar to hit the mob 2-3 times before being able to retreat it to a safer distance.

[Babekeke]

Spirits do gain access to enfeebling/divine/elemental/dark/healing(cure and curaga)/enhancing(regen, protect, shell) magic spells at the minimum level that any other job can learn it.

You forgot to mention that Light Spirit gets Banish IV BEFORE WHM or PLD get it.

[Rakshaka]

Not always. If the avatar has just a little bit more hate than you, it will obey your command. But if you pull hate from the avatar (usually this happens when you retreat an avatar who's first hit was really a miss) then the avatar will attack the mob to establish hate away from you. This feature is one of the SMN's main abilities and also allows the use of "Carby kiting."

Just let the avatar get a hit in before retreating, or retreat the avatar from a larger distance. Be aware, though, that some mobs have a higher enmity loss than others, meaning that you can shed a lot more hate from being hit on those types of mobs. So you might have to wait for the avatar to hit the mob 2-3 times before being able to retreat it to a safer distance.

I'm familiar with carbie kiting, and avatars natural aggression towards anything that's engaging the summoner. I'm familiar with how to kite a monster using minimal hate (i.e. even if your avatar misses they'll still pull hate), and various other tactics using avatar enmity. I'll clarify this situation even more.
My avatar is fighting a monster. It has hit the monster several times. I'm nowhere close to pulling hate from the avatar. The monster is not severely damaging my avatar (my avatar isn't shedding hate quickly). I command the avatar to retreat (the range at which I tell the avatar to retreat could be anywhere from right next to it, to out of aggro range of the monster, I've experienced this glitch in a range of distances). The avatar comes towards me for about half a second, then turns around and reengages the monster. No matter how many times I perform the retreat command it keeps doing the same thing. During this entire time, I never pull hate from the monster. The monster never moves.

[Rakshaka]

You forgot to mention that Light Spirit gets Banish IV BEFORE WHM or PLD get it.

Good point, I'll note that in the OP

[Papesse]

You can add those :

Diabolos loses all his TP with any Blood Pact used (even Ward) when his only TP based BP is Night Terror.

Shiva's Sleepga should overwrite tier-1 sleep and have his range extended (along with Slowga, Nightmare, Thunderspark, Lunar Roar...)

"Spirit damage" (aka Atonement, Chi Blast, Spirits Within, Nether Blast and especially Zantetsuken) shouldn't be nerfed that much on news NMs.

[Korpg]

I'm familiar with carbie kiting, and avatars natural aggression towards anything that's engaging the summoner. I'm familiar with how to kite a monster using minimal hate (i.e. even if your avatar misses they'll still pull hate), and various other tactics using avatar enmity. I'll clarify this situation even more.
My avatar is fighting a monster. It has hit the monster several times. I'm nowhere close to pulling hate from the avatar. The monster is not severely damaging my avatar (my avatar isn't shedding hate quickly). I command the avatar to retreat (the range at which I tell the avatar to retreat could be anywhere from right next to it, to out of aggro range of the monster, I've experienced this glitch in a range of distances). The avatar comes towards me for about half a second, then turns around and reengages the monster. No matter how many times I perform the retreat command it keeps doing the same thing. During this entire time, I never pull hate from the monster. The monster never moves.

Which monster does this happen? Or does this happen to all monsters? Because this similar situation has happened to me once before, and that was Climatic Hornet after Frenzy Pollen.

[Arciel]

Pets can glitch and ignore retreat commands. They will retreat for one second and then resume hitting the target, even if the target is attacking the pet and not the summoner

I've seen this occur before, and I think I'd attribute it to the unique hate properties of Retreat, which according to Kaeko is -10 CE. I believe the avatar glitches depending on the current CE of the SMN at the time of use. Also, considering this occurs rather often on fresh mobs, my guess is if the SMNs existing CE is less than a certain level, then it will glitch.

Like, I don't really remember having Retreat glitch on me when I'm fighting mobs which I know I've pulled solid hate against, late into the battle (not auto-attack kind). Then again, its not something you use frequently.