Job Vision: Watch paint dry

[Malamasala]

Vision
Mystics who conjure avatars to fight by their sides, then sit back and enjoy the show while paying close attention to their MP as their minions deliver devastating blows to adversaries and provide aid to allies

We intend to make it easier for avatars to wreak havoc upon enemies, but also emphasize how vital the act of managing the source of their magical powers is to summoners.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who equals sitting by my PC and watching a pet fight and waiting on those RARE Pact timers to come around to watching paint dry. I want an active JOB, and have been actively trying to convince SE of this vision since 2004.

The general idea to let the pet do the fighting isn't bad, but it needs more controls for the pet owner. When all you got is one measly rage timer, sitting back and watching is not FUN. Do SE want customers to be BORED? If yes, then please continue with your Summoner visions. If no, then observe how many timers/spells other jobs have and how active they are to play.

My simple suggestion is:

Add more Blood Pact timers. It doesn't get easier than that. If you can use more job abilities, you'll become more active, and enjoy the game more.

Alternative suggestion:

Change our envisioned role from paint dryer watchers, to either a melee or mage. That means give us EX staff skills, melee traits and melee armors (even better, pet/character hybrid melee armors). Or give us cure V, Thunder V, or whatever direction you want the mage part to go. The important part is to make us active.



The playerbase have said this for a decade and the information is somehow not getting through. We want to be more ACTIVE. We didn't pick Summoner to stand at the back, watch our pet fight (And read row after row of part chat saying "Get the damn pet off, it is feeding TP!") and then once a minute do an active pact choice (same over and over because each avatar only has ONE good rage pact at any given level).

If I don't see improvements until level 99, I'm quitting and picking up painting. While watching paint dry will be just as boring as playing Summoner, I'll at least get to paint as well.

[StingRay104]

Do away with blood pact rage and ward altogether, each avatar should have their own list of spells/abilities and each one should have its own timer.

[Soundwave]

The general idea to let the pet do the fighting isn't bad, but it needs more controls for the pet owner.

I understand people get tired and irritated waiting for so long for a fix to the job, using the word but after giving out a type of complement is just bad for starters.

I do think sitting back and watching the pet fight is rather boring waiting for two types of timers, so yes SE please look into this...give us more options instead of many options inside a few options. What I mean by that is we are still running off two timers that lead to over 40+ BP's

[Coldbrand]

melee summoner thread

Also, really, ask yourself "Am I Donatello?" if the answer comes up no, attacking with a staff will never be cool.

[Covenant]

I'm not 100% opposed to splitting physical/magical Bloodpacts, as well as enhancing/enfeeble bloodwards. Maybe, increasing the timers between the (4) to add "balance". Though, I still think ALL avatars should still share timers.

Id say 1.3 recast timer. With the summon skill adjustment and with the new bloodpact delay(if no tied to skill cap) then would probably drop 4 active uses to 1min timers or so.

[Duelle]

Alternative suggestion:

Change our envisioned role from paint dryer watchers, to either a melee or mage. That means give us EX staff skills, melee traits and melee armors (even better, pet/character hybrid melee armors). Or give us cure V, Thunder V, or whatever direction you want the mage part to go. The important part is to make us active.

I've always been in favor of giving SMN native support and access to a secondary school of magic, so I'll agree with this.

As far as additional timers, I'd be on board for that too, unless there's potency issues or something else that the devs are worried about when it comes to pet classes.

[AyinDygra]

Maybe Summoners should gain access to the family of spells associated with the active avatar; in effect, creating spell-casting modes more limited than Scholar, but still giving them "something" to do. This is in keeping with both Rydia's use of Black and White magic, and Yuna's white magic. They may even be able to use the MP of their Avatar to cast the spells, instead of their own.

Examples:
Shiva: Ice magic I-IV, Frost and Sleep
Ramuh: Thunder magic I-IV, Shock, Stun and paralyze.
Titan: Earth magic I-IV, Rasp, Gravity, Stun, Slow
Ifrit: Fire magic I-IV, Burn, Plague? +?
Garuda: Wind magic I-IV, Choke, Silence
Leviathan: Water magic I-IV, Drown, Slow
Carbuncle: Cures I-IV and protection magic.
Diabolos: Sleep, Gravity, Phalanx +?
Fenrir: Blind, Paralyze, Dispel +?
Atomos: Stardust I-IV, Slow
Cait Sith: (unknown)

Now Summoners will never be without something to do, and it's entirely linked to their main job, not selection of support job.

[Soundwave]

Maybe Summoners should gain access to the family of spells associated with the active avatar; in effect, creating spell-casting modes more limited than Scholar, but still giving them "something" to do. This is in keeping with both Rydia's use of Black and White magic, and Yuna's white magic. They may even be able to use the MP of their Avatar to cast the spells, instead of their own.

Examples:
Shiva: Ice magic I-IV, Frost and Sleep
Ramuh: Thunder magic I-IV, Shock, Stun and paralyze.
Titan: Earth magic I-IV, Rasp, Gravity, Stun, Slow
Ifrit: Fire magic I-IV, Burn, Plague? +?
Garuda: Wind magic I-IV, Choke, Silence
Leviathan: Water magic I-IV, Drown, Slow
Carbuncle: Cures I-IV and protection magic.
Diabolos: Sleep, Gravity, Phalanx +?
Fenrir: Blind, Paralyze, Dispel +?
Atomos: Stardust I-IV, Slow
Cait Sith: (unknown)

Now Summoners will never be without something to do, and it's entirely linked to their main job, not selection of support job.

The issue with that of course is balance, all you have to do is have a rdm to cover all those grounds and the rdm will do the job better and more effective than summoner. Summoner needs thier own type of spot light that separates them from other jobs.

Summoner is such a versatile job that it can do all those things but not potent enough...and because of this....the job is weak...when I mean weak I don't mean gimp I mean with the two timers we are running on to get the job done etc.

[Karbuncle]

For the above to would they would also need to give us significant skill levels, otherwise it would not be worth using.

But i don't see that being too far fetched.

[Duelle]

For the above to would they would also need to give us significant skill levels, otherwise it would not be worth using.

But i don't see that being too far fetched.

The other option would be a trait that causes spells to scale with Summoning Magic Skill. If you make it scale 1:1 then you would have to limit the spell list to allow them to use said spells as supplemental damage while the meat of their damage comes from the avatars, but it's one way of doing things.