Summoner’s job identity

[Ryallen]

I like the idea, even if I don't know a thing about balancing or design and can't tell if it'd work in a realistic setting.

Too bad SE won't ever change SMN because, let's face it, that's a shit ton of work to put into a single job that still outperforms most others by a mile. Not to mention all the people who'd be pissed that their main class was changed so drastically that they'd have to learn an entirely new rotation, breaking muscle memory that has been built for almost three full expansions by this point.

[Sylvain]

Regarding eatherflux and transe I agree with you.
From a purely visual and lore standpoint, these abilities don't feel like they're part of a proper summoner kit.

I was also kinda weirded out by the transe in HW, at least SB went in the right direction with the demi.

On the other hand, I do enjoy the game play around the transe and the mobility it provides. I ultimately also enjoy the summoner being a burst caster compared to BLM who has a very sustained dps.

But tbh, I really don't think they'll ever do anything about these

[Haxaan]

Once upon a time Final Fantasy used to make summoner this magical job that called forth Giant beasts to rain down destruction upon their enemies or heal the wounds of their team members. Summoners have had this iconic role in the Final Fantasy series and have always been one of my favorite jobs. I was so excited when summoner was announced for FFXIV and have played it since it's inception and have watched as it has gone from being a shell of it's former glory to taking baby steps in the right direction. I understand that they don't want summoner to be a Black Mage clone (i.e. glass cannon burst machine), and the dot system definitely makes them different in that sense, however I feel that if they incorporated the primals into the summoners rotation as part of a chain, that they could really pull off something more akin to the Summoners of old while still keeping Summoner different enough from Black Mage that it wouldn't feel like a repeat.

If they kept the rotation like it is and expanded on it by letting you choose which "trance" to use depending on the situation, and have a "trance" chain that you continuously string together and finish it off with dreadwyrm trance and summon Demi Bahamut. You could have Judgement Trance and harness the power of Ramuh to leave an aoe thunder dot while increasing the parties magic damage, or have a Tidal Trance and dealing aoe burst tidal wave damage while increasing the parties mp. The party buffs could be less impressive than an Astros buffs but you would be able to pick which ones to use. When using each of the trance attacks an image of the corresponding primal shows up behind the summoner ( like Bahamut's head for dreadwyrm trance), or Demi Primals could replace your current egi, and casts it's ability. This would mean the entire job wouldn't need to be overhauled, it would just expand on the base we already have but would incorporate the other primals in a way that would let us feel like we're summoning without having an actual primal called all the time. It may not be perfect but it could be fun and give summoner more of a support utility role than it has now.

I Love Summoner and am really disheartened at the direction it has taken in XIV. Egi's would be cool if they had more of an impact, and if we had more to choose from (EGI GLAMOUR PLOX!). The job has moved so far from it's original theme and has slowly started to come back to where it should be. I am hopeful and scared for Summoner in 5.0 and really truly hope that Yoshi and the dev team do something to help Summoner feel more like a Summoner and less like a Dragon Mage.

[Jonnycbad]

They could have made SMN into Yuna from Dissidia 012, in which whenever she attacks, a summon comes out for a second to perform an attack and dissipates.

So remove the ACN spells and change them to various primals come out, perform a move, then vanish.

[Grimoire-M]

To me, DWT was the answer to the mis-match between Summoner's identity over the series as a whole and their identity in XIV. That cooldown should be the moment you get to nuke everything. With the combined power you -and- your summons bring. The fundamental problem with this is the Egis themselves. They need to either be scrapped and reworked from the ground up or undergo very specific changes to make them feel more impactful. I'm leaning towards the former.

The simplest solution to this is to replace Rouse with DWT and merge their bonuses together. Similarly do the same with Summon Bahamut. Then remove the Aetherflow lockouts (so you can use Aetherflow during DWT again) and specific DWT bonuses (Instant Ruin III and Tri-bind boost). Finally, reduce Enkindle's cooldown to a minute, transform it into Enkindle: Bahamut (sharing a cooldown) when he's out, and remove the Enkindle proc. Keep Deathflare available during Summon: Bahamut to end it.

To me Ruin III/IV should not be available all of the time. Ruin I/II should be the baseline and probably nerfed back to 80 potency each. DWT can allow you to use both during its effect so it feels like a nuke phase. I'd also like to remove the proc for this and replace it with something that fit's SMN's kit more, like a resource to be able to use Ruin III/IV outside of DWT that the pets can help charge up with that proc while Ruin I/II also help out. Maybe add the Tri-bind buff back in at a massively higher cost too.

I don't necessarily agree that the pets need to be present in the Fester/Painflare animations themselves as-is. However, I do think they need to synergize and interact with the Summoner's kit more, ideally in ways that aren't an absolute pain to use (pretty much everything about Obey Garuda), or barely even noticed (Sicfrit). Some minor potential changes include making the pet cooldowns guarantee a Ruin IV proc, having the pet influence Tri-Disaster's third debuff during DWT, and reworking Contagion/Radiant Shield so they do something else that isn't as annoying to use on a pet cooldown. I'd like to see them both be competitive with one another so the only real difference between them is your party composition, which can be done with numbers tweaks to their raid utility currently, but long term I'd like to see more.

Specifically regarding that long term, I'd like to see a rework to make them a mix between Bahamut and what we have with Machinist's Turrets, where they attack whenever you cast a spell, but what that attack is depends on whether it's a Ruin spell or Tri-Bind. Similarly Bahamut should only attack when you cast a spell. Aetherflow shouldn't trigger pet attacks at all, and Ifrit shouldn't get free auto-attacks. Command-attacking should simply be the baseline for all pet dps, and their given abilities should all be cooldowns. I feel like all of their baseline and Enkindle abilities should be similar to one another too, even in cooldown. The odd ways they all intersect and work lead to awkward tuning and opener situations currently. Splitting the pets based on AoE or single target usage just creates more problems too imo. Ifrit is still 'riskier' but not immensely so in this case. Having to put yourself in melee range at the end of a Bahamut window isn't a hard thing to plan around compared to what Machinist has to deal with.

I don't feel petswapping should be a focus of their kit either, which is an idea I've seen people float around in light of the BRD changes. It's a mess and not worth the effort imo.

What I would like to see next expansion is some of the things Summoner is missing. Namely, an Aetherflow ability that works during downtime. As well as a personal defensive cooldown. Not having a Manaward or self-heal is one of the worst things to deal with. Another ability that specifically interacts with the pets would also be nice too, though I think it should exclude Bahamut. If the above changes happened and Bahamut was reduced to every third DWT as a result I think going with that animation change idea and also buffing Fester/Painflare during his window specifically could be a good idea. Not gonna lie, I kinda want to recreate Akh Morn spam. I think that'd be worth it as a capstone trait, even if it only added like 100 potency to Fester and 50 to Painflare.

[Mansion]

I'm ok with SMN as it currently is, in terms of rotation and overall DPS output. It's identity could do with more pet interactions though. The BRD system could be an idea without the songs timers, instead of just having a pet with a life pool on the field, having three "pet stances" activated when summoning, with added effects to the basic SMN kit could be interesting and make it more appealing. Like a Garuda-enemy debuff, a Titan-team buff, and an Ifrit-pure DPS. Then align Rouse and Enkindle to the SMN burst phases as suggested, to get into that Bahamut burst.

I did not dig that much into the lore, but for me it seems each extension just adds something on top of it, which reworks the rotation somehow, but it does not make that much sens. Like if in 5.0 we will be charging 2 bahamut to summon something like Shinryu after a pre-set cycle.
Although the rotation works fine with its phases right now, I'd love more logical sense and intuitive feel to it.

[Shiroe]

clunky AF...., that's the identity atm..

trying to time devotion or contagion with its aplication lags..., trying to get off max wyrnwaves when moving..., trying to obey a pet on ps4 pad..., petswap opener really intentional from SE? etc.., these make Smn clunky AF

I like the buffs and gameplay Smn offers, don't mind it's dot focused (more egi focused might mean more obey needed)..

wouldn't mind if Smn had more interaction with its egis (like when casting rouse, the pet turns its head to the player and its eyes start to flash red, than the pet glows as long as Rouse is in effect;.. even if not much gameplay changes, just at least making the pet more interesting visually, could make the Smn feel more like "Summoner")
....

changing the gameplay too, so the pet or the summning are more focused for the summoner, could be cool too.. like using more summons that aply diffrent buffs, dots or other effects

.. like after summing demi bahamut once and than after one dreadwyrm trance , you can either summon demi Ramuh for an extra strong dot, that never falls off, aslong as other dots of the smn are ticking on the target (making dots atleast have some connection with a pet /summoning);

or you can summon demi Shiva for a strong cone aoe move of 450 damage) or something like that..

(being allowed to chose either Rahmu or Shiva after demi Bahamut and one trance, means after the 1st demi Bahamut, we can get as big summen like Bahamut or Rahmu / Shiva after every trance.., instead of after every 2nd trance;... , even if it often means summonnig Rahmu and only once, than summoning multiple times Shiva furing a fight .. and summing as usual Bahamut all the time.., but with phase changes, might just see Rahmu a more than once in a fight.. not seeing him often, could make him more special.., just need to make him really flashy / cool.. like for pld passengers of arms)
...

but before SE change some slight visuals or even gameplay, SE needs to adresse the clunky ness of the class...

and ensure, that if/when SE does change Smn into a more "summoning" / "pet" class, Smn must not feel so clunky as it does atm (and not go more into direction of "obey" gameplay imo..., obey always lags and need too many buttons, besides pet playcment is way too clunky, even just calling a pet to your postion can feel clunky)

[Raikai]

I'd love if they actually renamed it to just Aethertrance or Trance, and the new abilities come next xpac would be more Demi-summons. They could make Bahamut an aoe focused summon and bring one to single target, and another to give party support.

this way SMN would really fulfill it's classical fantasy.

[dinnertime]

They should go for a simpler approach with SMN. Right now, it has a bunch of mechanics that it just looks like a mess. DoT management (which is easier now), pet management (or lack thereof), Aetherflow management, Demi-Bahamut management, the time management in general etc. While I don't find it hard, it's still bad design. Not only that, even with the adjustments they've given, SMN still suffers a LOT from mistakes like dying or pressing Aetherflow when you're not supposed to.

The ACN-based skills can stay, I don't think it's a problem. What I see being problematic is the pet system, Aetherflow and Trance. The pet system is boring and not engaging, Aetherflow is so essential to SMN's kit that without it you're nothing, then imo Trance feels...unnecessary. It's funny, but I think PvP SMN has better design just because you only need one round of Aetherflow to summon Bahamut, because no pets. Also an idea, if they can do that with PvE, they can also give free Aetherflow stacks only useable during the summon, doesn't count for Trance, and the Aetherflow skills are changed to be summon-based skills, so it acts as new command spells. What this does is eliminate the need to wait for Aetherflow before summoning Bahamut for max DPS so less time management, and makes SMN less reliant on Aetherflow in general. It also puts more focus on the summon for having more time to be out there and for having more summon-based spells. It's one thing that I think can improve SMN.

Hopefully Demi-Bahamut is a hint that they'll rework SMN somehow, or that they're putting it in a more favorable direction.

[Lauront]

I'd happily take your trances as a BLM. >: )