Being a Summoner can be disheartening these days :/

[Herby]

Actually I think the Bayld one(s) is/are slightly weaker ones for people who can't join delve yet. It would make sense with all their "Gear Progression" Ideas. There won't be too specific pieces imo.

Edit: Also I don't think we're getting any Grip now they simply changed it to the Ammo/Ranged Weapon slot.

[Babekeke]

The thing with them being weaker ones, is that if the delve one is indeed a grip, both can be worn at the same time.

[Mokeil]

While I would have no complaints about that, I doubt we will be so lucky. I think it far more likely that either the dev team changed their minds from grips to ammo for some reason... or some one made a mistake while preparing that info to be posted.

[Herby]

It's most probably that it was early in development and they didn't really decide which slot it would become. The Bayld and the Delve one will almost 100% be in the same slot. There will be no equipping both. Don''t set yourself up with Disappointment.

It's probably just the same as the alternator. Has some really nice stats. Let's us comfortably solo again outside Adoulin but won't set the world on fire. SMN will stay in it's niche. SE clearly doesn't want SMN to shine beside jobs like MNK DRK SAM.


Edit: Hate to be right but the SMN delve item is a bit underwhelmingas of yet. Yes, it does boost our dmg but not nearly as much as needed to be desired (doing 4,4k Heavenly Strike on Fernfelling Chapuli and around 100-140 melee dmg). Still have to test if it boosts our Wards like Earthen Ward though

[Mokeil]

So... SE dev/community rep guys... I see there are some job changes in the works for the next update. Beastmaster is getting some tweaks. Blue Mage is getting some tweaks. Those guys need some love, so good for them. But there is no news for Summoner, and that is distressing.

Sure, we've gotten lots of nice MAB (only useful once every 45 seconds), even some potential -perp pieces (if you win the Augment Roulette - I know I still haven't), but we're still so far behind nearly everyone in actual usefulness that I'd have given up long ago, if my friends weren't nice enough to occasionally indulge my whims.

I mean, OK, I know that we've kinda got that Jack-of-all-trades thing going on, and we shouldn't be as good as a specialist. Of course we shouldn't. That would be silly! But the problem is that we're not even half as good as the specialists, who can likely also fill at least one other role (damage, buffs/debuffs, and healing) at least as well as we can.

Our DoT is so non existent I'd be able to bore myself to death long before a mob falls over from it, our spike damage is so far apart I have time to go make a quick sammich before it's time to use the next one, our AoE damage is almost exclusively tied to Astral Flow (which wouldn't be half so damning if the first two things I mentioned weren't an issue), our buffs are outclassed 95% of the time (with even our very best being match-able by others), our cures no longer keep pace with the kinds of HP players now have nor the damage they take, the one debuff that looked like it would have been useful (Evasion Down) has been neutered by the piles of +combat skill that have been slapped on every weapon...

The sheer breadth of our abilities is staggering, but they're just so darned ineffective! The very second you have both a dedicated healer and a dedicated support person on the team, the need for those aspects on a present SMN is instantly destroyed, as most of our buffs don't stack and we're better off healing from our support job anyways. This leaves us only the need to do damage... which plenty of other jobs do far, far better. Similar arguments can be made if the Summoner is supposed to be playing a support role - damage and healing are covered, and there are far better jobs to fill the support role who won't have buffs that entirely overlap/are outclassed by the healer.

So c'mon, SE! SMN still has a ton of problems that need looking at! To name five, off the top of my head: BP Timer, Ward potency, Favor, Spirits, and auto-attack damage. Tweaking any of those five things might just tip us back over into being useful again. Is there any hope at all for us? Even a simple "Hey, we see there are problems and we're working to get them taken care of in the next 1-2 updates" would be nice... Just to let us know we weren't forgotten.

(Like Cait Sith apparently has been. I mean, how long ago was that preview video shown? You know, the one that showed us how super diligently you guys were working on that for us?)

Bah. Sorry for the griping without trying to provide something constructive. I know it's not up to my usual standards, but, as it says on the tin, being a Summoner can be disheartening these days.

[Shinzaku]

I completely agree. Summoner has always been one of my favorite jobs - throughout all of the struggles it has had in this game.

It's completely disheartening when you're trying to join end-game content and they won't accept you because you're a summoner. Too bad it's ruled by oats monks.