Why is Summoner the most ignored, misunderstood and broken job?

[Malamasala]

It is really hard to understand how the job has come into this situation, and stayed here for all these years.

Take DRG for example. They simply had to say "We think wyvern is part of the job, but it dies all the time. Can you fix this?" and they got a 20 min JA instead of 2 hours. If a Summoner says "Spirits are currently impossible to use, can we have them fixed?", it is just silence from the developers.

Another example is COR. Just 4 months after COR was released, SE said "We notice few people play COR, so we are improving their roll effects". But the fact that SMN was equally as rare, and had even worse Wards than COR had rolls, was just ignored.

Yet another example was PUP, which was added with only mage armors. They made a handful threads saying "We need melee armors to fight along with our pet." Even though this is something a minority of the Summoners have said far longer, it was only PUP who got the change and added to melee armors.

Summoning skill is another one. We felt like we had a skill that didn't matter, and asked for it to do something. Did SE make it do something? No, instead they added a brand new concept of "skill over cap" and introduced that. Our skill is still useless and does nothing... until we pass the cap. Why isn't it a straight bonus like all other jobs get?

We can also talk about SE just "forgot" to add new spells to spirits past level 75. They remembered PUP, but not SMN. How could this happen? Why is SMN not worth caring about, but PUP is?

It really seems like SE doesn't know what they are doing at all. Take for example Favors. It was a common suggestion from others, that avatars should have auras giving good bonuses. Each avatar should have their own - first mistake the suggestions did. How did this end? You ignore the avatars with the wrong favors, and you ignore the avatars with right favors but wrong pacts. SE threw in a 25% damage reduction without any reason at all. Luckily SE didn't give Garuda Hastega aura since it would have made us only use Garuda for everything. Sadly they gave her evasion aura which is useless so never is used.

Another thing SE never grasped, is what the Summoner is supposed to do. Melee? No melee stats or abilities or traits. Cast magic? No magic spells. Use spirits? Too long casting delay and too random. Use avatars? Too long pact recast. Stand and watch? Yea, that is pretty much the remaining option for Summoners. SMN is basically PUP, except we never got any traits to enhance our DD.

And if anyone has paid attention, you would know that new Summoner armors are rarer than mythics on the server. Every update SE keeps showing they have forgotten about the job, alternatively misunderstood it. We always get MAB armors, while we can't get access to anything higher than tier II nukes from subjob. This is just ridiculous when we have B rank staff we could melee with decent melee armors.

Lastly SE doesn't seem to have grasped the concept of buffs. They gave COR and BRD potent, long duration buffs that do not cost any MP. Then they gave SMN weak, short buffs costing a fortune in MP. A WHM can cast RR and it lasts an hour. It can also cast shell V on someone, and it will last 15 min. How about casting shining ruby? Sorry, 1 min duration. How about Earthen Armor, that is at least new. 3 min, 100 MP. At the same time BRD gets the same type of song, again for free, no MP costs, no need to run in next to tank and BP:Ward, can sing at a safe distance.



It isn't like any of us modest Summoners are asking for much.

- We want a clear direction of the job. Native melee traits or native magic spells, to show what we are supposed to do. Split BP timers so we can do more over the course of a minute is also fine, if the focus is meant to be avatars. Severely shortened spirit casting delays would show that we should use spirits.

- Flexibility, so that we can play as needed, instead of try and adapt to the least useless way. A great example is that we shouldn't be forced to stand in the back with Diabolos favor, we should be able to assault and have it melee while the aura reaches the furthest backlines.

- Balance, so we aren't the weakest job, with shortest durations, for highest MP cost and depend on moon phase, time of day, day of week, weather, Santa Claus. Ideally all our wards should work like Shell. 15 min duration. After all, 90% of them are defensive and do nothing to increase damage output, and at least 3 of them wear off based on damage.

- Armors. I can't stress this part enough. Summoner gets 5 new pieces of armor every 3 years. Inbetween we only get MAB gear, to help our tier II subjob nukes and 70+ magical WSes (which are all very weak compared to multi hit crit WSes).

And the smallest request we have is that we just get confirmation that something is being done about this.



PS. I find that all BP:Rages post 70 are just fine. The job can function as a substitute SAM with a 1 min meditate that deals a BP/WS every minute. If we delete all spirits and all wards, I can accept that this is a well made mage DD, but as long as they remain, it is a clear sign that the job was meant for so much more than just Predator Claws.

[Manicora]

toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long to read. i lost the point of this after you mentiond Pup.

[Xanaduu]

werent pup melee frames there since day 1 of the job? >.> it was just 2 mage heads that were added later XD

[Soundwave]

I will only read this post IF you change the title to [Dev team please respond!]

[Dallas]

Malamasala, you remind me of someone I once knew. Please tell me you have begun the long journey to get Hvergelmir! It's about time you love this job.

[Razushu]

we don't need melee or mage gear(we are neither of these job types) we need pet: + gear and/or job traits(preferably traits as alot of our slots are taken up by - perp gear) that boosts our avatars stats this and lower BP cap to 30 seconds at most.

Job traits
Astral Fury
enhances summoned Avatar accuracy and attack
tier I level 30
bonus 10

tier II level 60
bonus 22

tier II level 90
bonus 35

Astral Focus
enhances Avatar Magic attack bonus and grants TP bonus to Blood Pacts

tier I level 30
TP bonus 10% MAB 5

tier II level 45
TP bonus 20% MAB 10

tier III level 60
bonus 30% MAB 15

tier IV level 75
bonus 40% MAB 20

tier V level 90
bonus 50% MAB 25

these traits would help us compete but not surpass melees that can stack much more gear for WS/TP and mage DDs that can put on much more MAB in gear. If coupled with 30 BP delay cap I think SMN would have MUCH less to complain about in any facet of our job

[Soundwave]

Malamasala did not say anything about Hvergelmir?

[Ironside]

1. SMN as rare as COR? Haha, no. SMN has never, ever been as rare as COR; as I recall, COR has been the least-played job in the game since its release (yes, less played than PUP). The most recent Vana'diel Census that I've seen, 2009, shows twice as many SMNs as CORs.

2. Summoning magic skill under cap isn't very useful, true. Elemental Siphon and Avatar's Favor get relatively irrelevant boosts compared to the boosts to MAcc from Elemental or Enfeebling. However, I also do not believe that any other job gets the same kind increase over cap as SMN does; Ward durations can be more than doubled by stacking skill, while still increasing accuracy and damage of Rages.

3. No, SMN does not need melee gear. PUP was initially intended and conceptualized as a combination melee and pet job. Even since its first appearance in the series, Summoner has -never- been a melee job. Summoners have always been reliant on their summons, with no real melee capability.

4. Between rages, wards, favors, and ease of recast, I find avatars to be quite versatile. SMN is quite a strong solo job, especially with all of the perpetuation decreases and MP recovery granted to the job. No, it is not the strongest, but it is not the most useless job in the game. In addition, favors and wards allow SMN to be of use to a party also. I also don't see what you're talking about with ignoring the avatars with poor favors. Different avatars are used for different situations. I wouldn't summon Fenrir just for its favor, but it has other uses as well. Meanwhile, if I do need extra Refresh for myself or my party, I know I can pull out Diabolos and use his favor. This versatility is also why our buffs are not as strong or long-lasting as BRD's. BRD is defined by its songs; if a job with other capabilities (i.e. SMN) could match those, BRD would be a completely, utterly useless job. COR, also, is mostly defined by its buffs, which are also unreliable since their strength is determined by dice rolls. SMN buffs may be short, but they're fairly strong and the avatars can deal damage in addition to using buffs.

5. What other gear does SMN really need? Using proper gear, SMN can cap both perpetuation reduction and blood pact delay reduction with no trouble, while still having other slots to boost summoning magic skill or avatar MAB or whatever else you may need.

6. Minor point: DRG's Call Wyvern was it's 2-hour, an ability that's supposed to be incredibly strong; however, it was a pet that was important to DRG's utility and damage, in addition to dying easily and being difficult to heal. SMN does not have the same sort of issue; spirits do suck, but then again SMN doesn't need them to be a functional job, nor are they a 2-hour or equivalent ability that's supposed to be ridiculously strong. (For that matter, Astral Flow has been a useful 2-hour for as long as I've been playing; pre-cap increase it was a very common CoP mission strategy, and it's still the main ability enabling pretty much the fastest way to level jobs from 10-30.) They just aren't a necessary component to... pretty much anything SMN does. Not every spell that BLU or BLM or RDM gets is useful either; see, Deodorize. Does SMN have a higher proportion of less useful spells? Yes, very much so, but I'd rather have weak spirits than no spirits at all.

My conclusion: No, SMN is not the best job. Could it stand to be better? Yes, of course. However, SMN is able to deal good damage and utilize many full-party buffs with a rather high degree of personal safety, since the avatar is the one doing most of the work and can be quickly resummoned in the event that it is defeated. It is a strong job in its own ways.

EDIT: Didn't mean to make this post so long. Sorry for the wall o' text.

[Razushu]

Malamasala did not say anything about Hvergelmir?

Isn't Dallas the melee SMN or GTFO guy? I don't think anybody needs to mention melee tools to get him talking about it

[Soundwave]

Isn't Dallas the melee SMN or GTFO guy? I don't think anybody needs to mention melee tools to get him talking about it

That's the thing, nobody mentioned anything of "melee" but Dallas in this thread.