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

[Arciel]

Mainly in response to the OP.

SMN is the most misunderstood job because there are people like you who don't understand it that play it. Broken? maybe, depends on your point of view i guess.

DRG - The wyvern was designed to be an integral part of the job. With its recast at 2hrs and the numerous situations in which a wyvern could get dismissed or killed, it just wasn't feasible for players to really integrate they wyvern into gameplay - so they changed it.

COR - SMN has always been more popular than COR, or even at worst, on par in terms of popularity. You can refer to census as proof. COR buffs were enhanced because COR was designed to be a buff job like BRD and had a functional niche through its Phantom Rolls. SMN does not rely on its Wards to perform its main role in parties - this I will elaborate on later.

PUP are hybrid pet-melees. Fact of the matter before they changed the job up, neither automaton nor masters damage were proficient enough for it to be taken seriously as a melee. PUPs accuracy was terrible at C+, automatons had 20minute timers and died fairly easily - and unlike DRG the distribution of damage between pet and master was more equally shared.

SMN skill was once pretty useless, i'll agree. It has a reasonable number of uses now.
1) Elemental Siphon
2) Ward Duration / Rage Accuracy
3) Favor potency cap
4) Elementals recast
The bonuses are not straight, but this can be taken as both beneficial or detrimental - explained later.

Spirits didn't get new spells past 75. I'd like to ask SE why on this too. I suppose they thought no one cares, but I guess we do. Strangely tho Light Spirit does get banish IV.

What is SMN's role?
SMN, unlike a majority of the jobs in FFXI does not have a functional niche. What are functional niches?

- DD classes : subdivided into weapon/damage-type speciality
here's where your jobs like WAR MNK BLM DRG DRK etc go

- Tank classes: jobs that can tank
once the domain of PLD and NIN only, you could say DNC and BST have both increasingly found a place here.

- Support classes: jobs whose main function is to support by buffing/debuffing
WHM and the original refresh trinity: RDM BRD and COR.

then there are jobs that don't have this functional niche...
SMN, SCH.. and to some extent PUP and RDM depending on how you play it.
this isn't something that is set in stone and shifts according to the tools that the jobs acquire and the trends in player behavior.

but one thing that is certain is that SMN has always belonged to the category of jobs that don't have this functional niche. Instead, what it has is a process niche. It does pretty much everything it can do through its avatars, and this, like everything else, comes with its pros and cons.

Because SMN doesn't have a functional niche, it has always been very flexible in the way that it is played - but is typically never the master of whatever it does, because it was not functionally designed that way.

As a DD - SMN is capable of doing good blunt/slashing damage without the need for TP, and decent magical damage in 7 out of the 8 elements (sorry, lolCarbuncle) - all of which, as a bonus, is consequence free, and become increasingly reliable the stronger the NM is relative to the player.

As a tank - whilst not functionally realistic in the presence of certain DD jobs, avatars can tank various NMs, to great effect collectively. that said, they will likely lose out to BSTs in the same scenario, except when the NMs have some kind of extreme magic/elemental affinity - in which case avatars once again shine.

As support, SE has kinda thrown SMNs a bone in recent updates - Tidal Roar is extremely useful, as is Earthen Armor. The old staples such as Earthen Ward, Hastega, etc may still have their uses as well. What we end up with are unconventional support tools most of the time. SMN are still however, incompetent as healers.

Add to this, that SMN is fully capable of performing these functions in weakness/zombie situations, which is a feat that most jobs are not capable of, even in their area of expertise.

SMN, as it has been progressing past 75 is doing rather well, but not exactly good enough

Post 75 pros,
Perp cost issues greatly reduced - with the cost rise being gentler and the abundance of refresh/perp gear, this has mostly become a non-issue for SMN, shifting almost the entirety of MP usage to blood pacts.

BPs have scaled well - Lv70 and merit BPs are still doing damage in acceptable ranges against lv90 NMs, especially in non-atma situations.

New wards are actually useful - we got a utility ward with Fleet Wind, nice debuffs with Tidal Roar / Diamond Storm, and Earthen Armor for buff.. Inferno Howl is ok...

Post 75 cons,
Inside Abyssea, SMN is inferior to pretty much all the other jobs in doing anything in particular because they all gain tremendous boosts through atma and are not restricted by the 45-60s timer in doing anything - particularly true for any form of damage dealing. This is basically an exaggeration of SMNs weakness as a slow-fire job during the zomgHaste era.

New damage pacts don't really add anything new to the job. So now we can actually do magical nukes with Fenrir - thats about all that we really got. Diabolos and Carby get stronger nukes. Ok, but they're all magical, and merit BPs are still mostly more effective than them.

Avatar's Favor is still mainly an afterthought. If not to make use of the perp cost reduction, most SMN wouldn't bother to use favors unless they pretty much can't do anything else with their avatars, which in itself is kind of a rare situation. Also, inside Abyssea, nobody really cares for the marginal buffs they provide, but thats less of a problem with the job than a unique distinction of Abyssea.

Elemental Spirits didn't get a repertoire upgrade, and are still unreliable - at least give them Tier V spells, srsly.

...outside of Abyssea however, SMN is still able to hold its worth perfectly fine, but is still not the first go-to job for pretty much everything unless your playstyle happens to want to favor them in action, like a pet-based or smn based ls, or if you don't like paladins, or if you know somehow that zombieing is likely.

...

tl;dr version

SMN is ignored in Abyssea because its weaknesses are magnified more than its strengths inside due to atma. Sure avatars can get considerable buffs from it, but they still fall outside of most conventional strategy. They're also not your goto jobs for procs.

SMN is misunderstood because people keep thinking it should have a functional niche when it doesn't need to have one, and then start doing silly things like trying to advocate SMN meleeing for damage and so on. SMNs advantage is in that it has never had a fixed function and any of this attempt to create one pigeonholes it, limiting the advantages its always had.
The moment you try to stray away from SMNs process niche of doing stuff through its avatars, the SMN is nothing and will still not compare to other jobs in performing any of these functions.

SMN is not broken. Definitely not outside of Abyssea. Inside, it's simply not popular, thats all.

[Luvbunny]

To the OP, great stuffs!! I only wish that the developers would read, listen, and do something about the SMN job. As it is now, the jack of all trades type of job that is beyond terrible... Even a simple fix of making the buff duration last 10-15 mnts would be a welcome change. Avatar favor that is permanent to the party members with a much wider area would be most welcomed. There are tons of minor improvements that SE could do, but REFUSE to implement, kept silent, and DO NOTHING to fix the job, even after 9 years...

[Malamasala]

Why should I have Impact? Is it that really useful to justify 1/3 my MP pool?(Honest question haven't heard that much about it)

I hear it deals about 1300-1700 somewhere on KS99 Behemoth. Nothing amazing for 666 MP, but the highest damage you'll ever get out of a spell on SMN (that isn't a BP). I've personally not had time to hunt for my own cloak though. Also I believe it was either a SCH or a BLM doing it, so hard to say how much MAB was involved.

Seriously? You're complaining about a job when you don't even bother to learn everything about it? I play SMN like once a month and even i make a habit to know the basics of it.

I'd say I know everything but earthen armor, but I'm sure there is still something left that I don't know. For example I know WHY spirits casting timer reset on assault. They have two modes. Buff mode and Attack mode. But SE stripped all buffing spells of all but light elemental, so buff mode is very hard to notice. Buff mode is about 50% the recast of attack mode. Each time you use Assault, the spirit is set to attack mode AND have to start counting down from max recast. Every time you use Retreat, the spirit is set to buff mode AND have to start counting down from max recast. (Which is half of attack max recast). And that is just one thing I learned all on my own, since nobody had documented this or even talked about it online.

The SMN one is more potent, Lasts longer, and the best thing is they stack. Really it costs absolutely no where near 1000MP to do Earthern Armor, at least be realistic with your fake numbers.

It is 100ish MP lasting 3 minutes, every 3 minutes you reappy it during 30 minutes will add up to 1000 MP. It is a realistic, but not factual number. You may disagree that any NM takes 30 min if you want, it was just an example after all.

The job has its uses. A lot of people use SMNs outside of Abyssea simply for Safe-DD, Their Avatars are disposeable, they do good Damage, and they (The Summoners) are technically ranged DD.

I agree completely. A tiny fraction of the job functions and has its uses. I just wonder why the majority of it is left forgotten to rot. We've got a whole load of wards, that would be useful if they scaled. When you get them at low levels, you have too low skill to use them for any decent duration. When you have the skill, you are too high level to use these wards. The whole job is designed to be counter productive.

SE Probably figures the job is balanced because of its "Safety" Factor.

And in which way would boosting wards or spirits or SMN melee change this? Spirits would be the same as avatars, except "fast" magic DD. Melee SMN would be anti-safety, and not make us overpowered at all. Wards would make the job safe for everyone in the party. And I don't think SMN making MNKs live longer would be called overpowered.

The only thing SE can't improve, is our DD abilities. And it is the only thing we don't need. (We want something new since level 70 physical pacts though, just because other jobs got new WSes. But we don't need them)

We just need a Reduction in the BP Timer (Maybe lower cap from 45 to 30) and a bit more power behind our punches.

I disagree there. It is the only thing we don't need. We already deal slow and safe damage. It fits the job perfectly. What we can't do is buff, spirit and melee, even though the prospects for them are golden.

[Malamasala]

Our cast time is just as long it takes 7 seconds to call an avatar, then there's the amount of time it takes to position the avatar and 4 seconds for the BP to fire

It happens once, and then you have your pet. But I do agree that if you choose a playstyle with pet swapping, meleeing will not be ideal. Other things not suitable for pet swapping is: Nuking (lack of built up TP), Favors (lack of power up), Perpetuation gear (why use it if you don't keep pets out and just resummon new ones?).

It is just one of those things that us Summoners can choose the way to play. Pet focused or pact focused. (Personally I dislike the weak wards, and that leaves me just spamming rages, which have recasts of 45 seconds and don't need pet swapping).

The high level weapon skills from their given class natively

They have Higher melee stats

They have job traits/abilities for melee, front line survivablity as well as dumping their emnity on thier pet

Observe that your avatar does not get any of these. The avatars are WHM, BLM or DRK, have what equals roughly a 35 DMG rating staff. This is why you are on the edge of hate with a HQ staff and melee with your pet. If you equip a 40 DMG staff or higher, you'll actually out-DD your own avatar (ignoring BP damage).

If you can out DD your own pet, why claim your pet is the DD and yourself not? Only reason to let the pet DD and not yourself, is to avoid death. But a great example of HNM fights were you could melee, is Fafnir. You are supposed to stand on its feet, and you are supposed to get wing spammed and take just as much damage as everyone else. In this situation you may as well melee, since you can't avoid the AOE anyway. (I wouldn't recommend too many melee jobs in total though).

I'd also claim it is easier to keep a SMN alive, than a wyvern. So just check a DRG how long they can keep their wyvern alive, and then add 5 minutes and you'll know how long you can melee. Or better yet, run when the wyvern dies because you are next.

[Karbuncle]

We can buff just fine, I just think our buffs should scale a lot better. For instance.

Carbuncles "Shining Ruby" Should scale to, by level ~90, up to the potency of Shell V, and Protect V. There is no reason it shouldn't. But at the same time, remember Shining ruby stacks with Pro/shell, So even if it doesnt get a power boost (It should) you have to remember if your WHM is handing out Pro/shell V, and you use Shinning Ruby, they stack, and it enhances it further.

Diabolos' Phalanx: This needs to go up to at least 30 damage. Back when only RDM could Phalanx this BP was a good idea, AoE Phalanx, slightly weaker but group friendly. Now with SCH and /SCH, Its lacking. It needs a buff. badly.

Hastega is Fine, Long duration, Same potency.

Diabolos' Magic Attack Bonus needs to be a bit more potent no matter what the time, Maybe just +5 across the board. I.E 15 Full moon, 14/lower, 13/etc /12etc as opposed to its 10/9/8 now. Its still a wonderful BP, Regardless if its not perfect.

Earthern Ward: Needs to be boosted to absorb 300 Damage. a full dmg Stoneskin isn't asking much, Right now players can buff it as high as +100 additional Damage, and again with SCH and /SCH, this loses its uniqueness a lot.

Aerial Armor: Make it more like Utsu Shadows. Blinkga and to a lesser extent, Occultation-ga (JA), make this BP used very very seldom. If it gave 3-4 Utsu-like Shadows, It wouldn't be ENTIRELY useless. Just more situational.

Problem is you have to remember SMN is a group job, All of Summoner's Buffs stack with WHM, COR, BRD, etc buffs. They weren't meant to be solo healers, They were meant to increase and further buffs. Thats my thoughts. But it wouldn't hurt to give them stronger buffs.

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on the Issue of Spirits. why waste time buffing the most worthless aspect of our job when we could buff the best aspects further and actually make headway in becoming more useful?

In order to make spirits useful, they would have to do Massive amounts of damage in 45 seconds, To match or better the damage from an Avatar in that time. Also Spirits don't get SMN Set bonus proc either, because its for Blood Bood. Soooooooo On Average (yes, Average) the SMN i do things with can do about 4-5k Heavenly Strikes. (Not counting Stupid-resistant mobs, why would i) (This is INSIDE Abyssea, Outside its probably half that).

So in order for us to Buff spirits to somehow make SMN more appealing, I'd imagine we'd have to give spirits a Casting timer of about... 5 seconds, and their nukes would need to do at least 2x their current damage.

This is unrealistic at best. Spirits are so terribly broken any fix to them would take massive man-hours and time. This is also unrealistic. We shouldn't want to focus on boosting the most useless and terrible aspect of our job, We should focus on boosting Avatars to the point they can hold their own against mainstream DD. I don't ask that they out-damage the best of the best, simply that they're at least on par.

If i wanted to gear my SMN to the absolute best of its Abilities, i Should be able to at least be withing a 10% Damage gap of a very well geared WAR. We both put in effort to our jobs, and SMN is designed to DD as well as buff, We should be good at both. I'm not asking to out-DD an Ukon War, or a Vereth MNK, But at least to be useful enough that when asked to come as something, SMN is considered.

we need a few buffs, but i still think the biggest impact to our usefulness would be in buffing our BP:Rages to do a bit more damage, and lowering BP:Timer to 30 seconds instead of 45 (with gear).

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On SMN Melee. Stop about it. It can be useful inside Abyssea in some situations, But outside Abyssea we lose entirely too much to make it useful. I would hate a buff to SMN melee because knowing SE, it would not be worthwhile. It would be on level with what "Composure" did for buffing RDM melee.

Yah +10 Accuracy at the lost of all of your native Fast cast! (im exaggerating, It does other things). While trust me, I would be the first to praise a boost to SMN melee, It just isn't fitting withing the "job" description so to say. No past SMNs were heavy Melee, in any FF game title, In FFXI it won't be any different. We have staff skill, yes, We're on Relic Staff, yes, But we're not meant to be hard-core DD. I don't see SE Giving us anything in that category.

It would be nice, but absolutely unrealistic. They wouldn't turn around and make DRK The best nuker, because it doesn't make sense, They wouldn't boost PLDs curing ability because it also wouldn't make sense. both of these examples are basically "These jobs are 'okay' at that, but they're not great at it, they were suppose to be". In the same light, SMN is 'okay' at meleeing, but they aren't great, they were never meant to be.

I'm not trying to say don't keep asking for it, I'm only trying to explain its incredibly unrealistic and knowing SE's past, It will never happen.

-------------------

On your list of Ideas, the best you can hope for is a buff to Spirits and our Buffing. I wouldn't mind a massive buff to our Buffing ability. Infact i think we're way past due for one. Buffing our Spirits would be like polishing a turd, It will never be useful, why bother.

[Soundwave]

Scale x amount of MP (BP:Ward)

Buffs should cost x amount MP/party members granted with selected buff.

Example: Hastega MP 129 When Hastega hits a total of three party memebers including garuda you spend 43 MP

The range needs to be a bit wider than protectra , would be nice considering when you buff everybody tends to run away.

Buff Range

The range needs to be a bit wider than protectra , would be nice considering when you buff everybody tends to run away. I say this for both only beause I so often see party members not close enough and run away and you just watch all your MP go bye bye.

[Malamasala]

SMN is misunderstood because people keep thinking it should have a functional niche when it doesn't need to have one, and then start doing silly things like trying to advocate SMN meleeing for damage and so on. SMNs advantage is in that it has never had a fixed function and any of this attempt to create one pigeonholes it, limiting the advantages its always had.

You are confusing me. Suggesting melee SMN is the opposite of pigeonholing it, since it opens up yet another way to play the job. (Claiming melee SMN is the only way to play, however would fit with what you are saying).

As I see it, we are probably of the same opinion. SMN isn't meant to be good at anything, it is supposed to be decent at a lot. Our opinions are a bit split at where "a lot" lies. You seem to be pretty content with "a few wards", "a few rages", "a few favors". I on the other hand think that every part should be an active part of the job.

It is the tiny things like:
- Phalanx scales with level. Why doesn't Nocturnal Shield?
- Aura range is like 10'. Why isn't it far enough to let your pet melee while your backline gets Macc, MAB, Refresh bonuses?
- Spirits takes like 30 seconds with good gear and after assault to cast a random spell. A PUP casts the optimal spell after 25 seconds.

Do the gaps need to be this large? Would we honestly replace all other jobs if we could toss out a 25 damage reduction Nocturnal Shield? Or how about we got a random spell after 15 seconds? You can still get bind > frost > frost > bind cycles, but it at least doesn't take 2 minutes to get through that cycle.



The updates to the job are really simple. Sit down and tweak the values to reasonable levels. Is it logical to have a level 90 ice spikes spell do 2-3 damage to a HNM with 100 000 HP? Well, I guess one could say it doesn't matter if the paralyze procs often enough, but I'd still like to see something along 15 damage on icespikes for example.

The best part is that no new content is needed. Just sit and change numbers back and forth until you suddenly have some that make sense. Numbers that will make people say "Hey, use that ward! It is helpful".



Though I think some education might be needed also. The Earthen Armor discussion clearly shows that it isn't a bad BP:Ward, if you understand how it works. (Honestly, I still don't get it if is supposed to wear off on when it was effective, or if it lasts the full time and constantly lowers damage taken).

[Razushu]

It happens once, and then you have your pet. But I do agree that if you choose a playstyle with pet swapping, meleeing will not be ideal. Other things not suitable for pet swapping is: Nuking (lack of built up TP), Favors (lack of power up), Perpetuation gear (why use it if you don't keep pets out and just resummon new ones?).

It is just one of those things that us Summoners can choose the way to play. Pet focused or pact focused. (Personally I dislike the weak wards, and that leaves me just spamming rages, which have recasts of 45 seconds and don't need pet swapping).



Observe that your avatar does not get any of these. The avatars are WHM, BLM or DRK, have what equals roughly a 35 DMG rating staff. This is why you are on the edge of hate with a HQ staff and melee with your pet. If you equip a 40 DMG staff or higher, you'll actually out-DD your own avatar (ignoring BP damage).

If you can out DD your own pet, why claim your pet is the DD and yourself not? Only reason to let the pet DD and not yourself, is to avoid death. But a great example of HNM fights were you could melee, is Fafnir. You are supposed to stand on its feet, and you are supposed to get wing spammed and take just as much damage as everyone else. In this situation you may as well melee, since you can't avoid the AOE anyway. (I wouldn't recommend too many melee jobs in total though).

I'd also claim it is easier to keep a SMN alive, than a wyvern. So just check a DRG how long they can keep their wyvern alive, and then add 5 minutes and you'll know how long you can melee. Or better yet, run when the wyvern dies because you are next.

The high level weapon skills from their given class natively=

They get blood pacts not WS

They have Higher melee stats=

Their Blood pacts do lots of damage and naked they way outdamage us (so really the argument should be for us getting more ways to boost thier DoT)

They have job traits/abilities for melee, front line survivablity as well as dumping their emnity on thier pet =

Higher HP and -50% PDT

[Malamasala]

Buff should also be a bit wider range than protectra and maybe maybeeee scale on the

Well, we asked for increased ranged 2004, we got it 2010? I don't think that even if we ask for more, we'll see it until 2020. The current range is also fine except for melee that run away.

In the same light, SMN is 'okay' at meleeing, but they aren't great, they were never meant to be.

Yea, it isn't like I want extreme melee abilities. Just more accuracy so one can build TP easier when I feel like having fun. Easiest way is armors, even though SE did paint themselves into a corner and forced us to wear 5+ slots of armor just to stop our MP from bleeding away. Had they not, we'd have plenty of room for melee gear (had it existed).

On your list of Ideas, the best you can hope for is a buff to Spirits and our Buffing. I wouldn't mind a massive buff to our Buffing ability. Infact i think we're way past due for one. Buffing our Spirits would be like polishing a turd, It will never be useful, why bother.

I'd be more than happy with that. But it is still hard to think SE adds us to MAB armors for any other reason than tick us off. Only thing it helps really is WSing, and as I said, if we want to WS we'd rather have melee armors to get the TP than MAB to boost your rare WS damage.

Buffing spirits wouldn't be so much like polishing a turd, as it would be like giving SMN native spells (cure, holy, thunder IV etc) at a lower efficiency than WHM/BLM/RDM/SCH. I've always hated myself for being /WHM casting cure 3 when I have cure 5 available.

Kind of like being a millionaire hunting cans for recycle money.

[Malamasala]

Stuff

I'll admit, you lost me. Are we talking only avatars, or comparing pet jobs with avatars?

If it were only avatars, I'd kindly disagree that it is rare to call "50% PDT" a melee trait, even if it helps. If you were saying we have 50% PDT and BST/PUP/DRG have melee traits, then I'm not sure what it means except that is how it is.