Job Manifesto discussion RE: Summoner

[Korpg]

Hopefully they've realised boosting Summoner won't unbalance the game already, they seem to be treating us much better in the last few months. I'm optimistic that there's a buff to Ward potency coming soon(ish), and Nightmare will be included. SE seems to have figured out SMN was in a very bad way, and have started fixing us. I hope they've finally understood our Ward buffs are considered useless unless they grant an at least similar effect to BRD and COR buffs, fixing the duration problem was a great start.

I think they are going to improve the buffs to better standards since both Bard and Corsair has better buffs than us. Maybe improve the haste % from Hastaga or increase the stats/debuffs from almost all of Fenrir's BPs

[Espionis]

Well after playing summoner 6 years ago, then quitting, i finally started back playing again. upon my return I had to start fresh, while remember old gameplay and learning about all the new things added. And i have recently reached 90 smn and come to notice something in abyssea. Summoner is not able to Proc colors for NMs in abyssea thru avatar blood pacts, and i think allowing this would add to summoner's usefulness in abyssea groups. If possible to allow avatar Blood Pacts to proc the colors necesary for NMs or even allow the right lights needed in abyssea areas. I feel the Blood Pacts should function on same par as Spells from lets say a BLM or a WS from a Melee for abyssea battles.

[Razushu]

Well after playing summoner 6 years ago, then quitting, i finally started back playing again. upon my return I had to start fresh, while remember old gameplay and learning about all the new things added. And i have recently reached 90 smn and come to notice something in abyssea. Summoner is not able to Proc colors for NMs in abyssea thru avatar blood pacts, and i think allowing this would add to summoner's usefulness in abyssea groups. If possible to allow avatar Blood Pacts to proc the colors necesary for NMs or even allow the right lights needed in abyssea areas. I feel the Blood Pacts should function on same par as Spells from lets say a BLM or a WS from a Melee for abyssea battles.

While it would be nice to get some procs on SMN, it's not that big an issue. If I feel like seal farming on SMN, I'll either solo(if I'm bored with an afternoon to waste), or organize a run myself and /sh for a NIN, a BLM and a WHM.

[Malamasala]

I think they are going to improve the buffs to better standards since both Bard and Corsair has better buffs than us. Maybe improve the haste % from Hastaga or increase the stats/debuffs from almost all of Fenrir's BPs

I've already given up on them long ago. I just keep saying they should be fixed because they should, not because I think they will be.

Still highly annoyed at how SE had gotten letters from me over years and then they add Corsair, sees nobody uses it for support in 2 months, and just buff the potency of all rolls...

2 months of being unpopular and they got a buff. SMN at the time being at 4 years, and got nothing. I honestly believe a Summoner killed the CEO's wife or something. I've never seen anything being treated worse than SMN. (But admittedly I've not seen starving children in africa or jews at concentration camps)

[Korpg]

I've already given up on them long ago. I just keep saying they should be fixed because they should, not because I think they will be.

Still highly annoyed at how SE had gotten letters from me over years and then they add Corsair, sees nobody uses it for support in 2 months, and just buff the potency of all rolls...

2 months of being unpopular and they got a buff. SMN at the time being at 4 years, and got nothing. I honestly believe a Summoner killed the CEO's wife or something. I've never seen anything being treated worse than SMN. (But admittedly I've not seen starving children in africa or jews at concentration camps)

Stop being so negative. SMN has been forgotten before, but not now. SMN's roll has been a lot different than what you want, but that doesn't mean that everyone plays the same as you, or have the same opinions as you.

I think SMN is fine as it is, and improvements are just that, improvements.

[Camate]

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

• MP Consumption

The MP cost for Blood Pact: Ward abilities are set rather high because the effects they grant are AoE; however, they are designed to elicit a higher level of benefit when used to support a party.

• Effect duration

As we’re sure you’re aware, depending on the level of your summoning skill, various enhancement bonuses are added to your Blood Pacts. These bonuses make it so ultimately you will see a very noticeable difference in effect duration when compared to other magic spells and abilities. If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

• Effect

In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

[Alhanelem]

The effects of the blood pacts themselves are less of a problem compared to the blood pact timers. No other job is as heavily restricted by a recast timer as summoner. In today's metagame, even the minimum blood pact recast is like an eternity. It wasn't quite as bad at 75 (though still a problem), but as the levels have increased, the problem has grown more severe.

A few Ward issues though:
Ifrit's Crimson Howl (Warcry) is the shortest buff in the SMN arsenal, and considering its effect isn't that potent, its duration should either be increased significantly, or/and be its own distinct status effect and allow it to stack with Warrior's Warcry effect.

Titan's Earthen Ward: Inferior to Stoneskin, so no one wants you to use it. If a white mage is present, this also often prevents the stoneskin benefit from Cure from taking place.

[Panthera]

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

That's fair, but raising Summoning Magic Skill is no easy task. Other jobs can spam away very quickly, sometimes on a mob that's safely sleeping. Combat skills like Hand-to-Hand or Katana level quickly because the player can attack twice on one round, and either can get skillups. Summoner cannot do this, as Blood Pact has a lengthy timer that cannot be circumvented. Standing around Summoning and Releasing for hours on end is just not the height of stimulating game-play. Can this be made easier and faster?

Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

Ifrit's Crimson Howl could use a boost. Summoner is just not my go-to job for buffing a party, other than certain obvious moves. Crimson Howl should be a substantial Attack bonus like Minuet or Chaos Roll.

Fenrir's Ecliptic Howl could use a boost as well. This move should be like Madrigal or Hunter's Roll. The problem with the move is that the minimum values are too low to be useful. I'm fine with it being tied to moon phase... but during Full and New Moon, the bonuses should be huge.

Could the speed of Hastega be tied to summoning magic skill? I'm going to bet that Red Mage is gonna get Haste II sooner or later, and it would be nice if Summoner could keep up.

[Soundwave]

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

• MP Consumption

The MP cost for Blood Pact: Ward abilities are set rather high because the effects they grant are AoE; however, they are designed to elicit a higher level of benefit when used to support a party.

• Effect duration

As we’re sure you’re aware, depending on the level of your summoning skill, various enhancement bonuses are added to your Blood Pacts. These bonuses make it so ultimately you will see a very noticeable difference in effect duration when compared to other magic spells and abilities. If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

• Effect

In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

• MP Consumption

I never saw a issue with MP, I believe this weighs a bigger scale from the summoners play style, I find that summoners in a support party only try to use Rage pacts as well and then they complain that they are running low on mp. Just because we are versatile does not mean we can split both ends unless we have the MP support from Refresh etc. to back that up.

• Effect duration/• Effect

Being a veteran summoner/HNMLS/been playing since release date. Its obvious summoning skill is hard to level even after new skill raise adjustment. I'm confident that many summoner's on here are very close to cap for level 90 or are already at the cap, I would believe that many of the complaints are legitimate due to effect duration being so low....

-Warcry: Extend the duration or make it scale correctly with a warriors warcry job ability.
-Glittering Ruby: Allow the summoner to chose which attribute to increase based off of type of party you are in possible?
-Noctoshield: Please increase duration/%damage taken off.

• Other

New JA that allows the summoner to change the moon phase/time of day for themselves only....for Fenrir/Diabolos to avoid being so random, to give better incentive for support.
(Or allow the JA to give maximum effect.)

And last...

Allow a system message to be displayed when an Avatar effect on the mob has worn off. Its a pain guessing when the effect wears off, when you try to re-apply it and just waste MP(Well....wasting BP timer is more like it.) to see the effect resist you. I understand this is because the effect is from the avatar and not from the player it does not say this...however this should be considered. Much like the system message when a player triggers a ! his/her name is displayed.

[Airget]

The effects of the blood pacts themselves are less of a problem compared to the blood pact timers. No other job is as heavily restricted by a recast timer as summoner. In today's metagame, even the minimum blood pact recast is like an eternity. It wasn't quite as bad at 75 (though still a problem), but as the levels have increased, the problem has grown more severe.

A few Ward issues though:
Ifrit's Crimson Howl (Warcry) is the shortest buff in the SMN arsenal, and considering its effect isn't that potent, its duration should either be increased significantly, or/and be its own distinct status effect and allow it to stack with Warrior's Warcry effect.

Titan's Earthen Ward: Inferior to Stoneskin, so no one wants you to use it. If a white mage is present, this also often prevents the stoneskin benefit from Cure from taking place.

I think I see what you're getting at, where perhaps instead of a static 1min recast for each BP used perhaps they could consider the recast be based on the BP used rather then always make it a 1min recast. Perhaps warcry could be 30 secs with stoneskin being 45 secs or something to that effect. But of course BP- gear would still effect those timers so if you had -15 BP gear those two would be 15 and 30 second recast on wards.

As for BP Rage though I think those should remain as a static 1min recast since they are basically 1min TP moves in essence, so in that case I think the only thing that should effect that timer would be the -BP gear. Though for BP Ward I think SMN would see some benefits if they give unique timers based on each enhancement used.