SMN - Why it is not a very interesting job and not a good upgrade from ACN

I feel like reviving this, because for patch 2.1 they have only EVER made ONE mention of Summoner, and that was some kind of upcoming tweak to Bane.

Yet, Ifrit remains useless, and all the original problems in my post continue...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crevox

I feel like reviving this, because for patch 2.1 they have only EVER made ONE mention of Summoner, and that was some kind of upcoming tweak to Bane.

---

They also mentioned improving pet functionality.

Quote:

---

Yet, Ifrit remains useless, and all the original problems in my post continue...

---

to be fair, summon 3 not being very good is the only actual 'problem' in your post. Everything else is just "I don't like how this works" complaints... and addressing "I personally don't like this" problems are always lower priority, especially when the job in question is already mechanically sound and statistically very strong.

Yes, let's beat this dead horse some more.

Quote:

---

They also mentioned improving pet functionality.

---

All they are adding are chat commands to command pets. The only issue I ever had with commanding pets was being unable to command them while casting, which they already resolved. Controlling them is perfectly fine at the moment.

Quote:

---

to be fair, summon 3 not being very good is the only actual 'problem' in your post. Everything else is just "I don't like how this works" complaints... and addressing "I personally don't like this" problems are always lower priority, especially when the job in question is already mechanically sound and statistically very strong.

---

Without going into detail, there's a lot more than that. Just because it's the only thing you may see or agree with doesn't mean it's the only thing.

Quote:

---

Yes, let's beat this dead horse some more.

---

Do you see changes or any kind of announcement of changes? No? Well then, it's an ongoing problem that needs to be addressed.

Every job has its' own share of problems. Summoner is fortunate enough to not have the same amount of problems that a class, like Warrior, that needs immediate addressing. Summoner needs adjustments, but at this point in time, other jobs are in need of it more than we do.

sadly i wanted a smn badly in ffxiv and when it came out i was dissapointed a lot, i wanted a summoner not a dot class like spirit master from aion or warlock from wow, i hate those, i wanted my summoner as a final fantasy summoner not a pet class, i wanted him to cast summons as spells, not control them as pets like a hunter, if it is up to me fixing ifrit won't help with anything that i see as a summoner class, fixing bane won't help anything, i just want a full overhaul of this class, i don't know what did the people who made this class smoking, did they ever PLAY ANY FF GAME? did they ever SEE A SUMMONER? i am confused and sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and angry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After reading this thread, I like it. I had the idea in which you summoned a larger egi but that would run into visual clutter problems.

- Rydia was a DoT person
- Summons were good..until you got better spells (save for some awesome summons)
- FFXIV is a combination of Rydia and nerfed Summons

What all people here fail to realize is this; FFXIV took ~4 years to make. It failed and Yoshida was given 1 year to basically REMAKE THE GAME. So it's not like you can do something amazing in 1/4th the time.

I would make Summons 80% of your damage and make them take 5% damage from any non-direct attacks. All but 1~2 of your Arcanist skills would have to be used through the summon otherwise you did absolutely nothing.


Side Note: Sadly, ACN => SMN is almost the same as THM => BLM. The only real cool skill BLM gets is Flare and it's not even godtier (probably due to it being overpowered). SMN CD suite is pretty lame though.

Side Note 2:
For Final Fantasy Tactics, Summoner in the beginning was boss damage. Then later in the game Summoner was trash because all the "strong" summons took too long to use so enemies would just move out of the way. That and two swords Monk would wreck everything in sight so I, personally, stopped using an inefficient class.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soralis

sadly i wanted a smn badly in ffxiv and when it came out i was dissapointed a lot, i wanted a summoner not a dot class like spirit master from aion or warlock from wow, i hate those, i wanted my summoner as a final fantasy summoner not a pet class, i wanted him to cast summons as spells, not control them as pets like a hunter, if it is up to me fixing ifrit won't help with anything that i see as a summoner class, fixing bane won't help anything, i just want a full overhaul of this class, i don't know what did the people who made this class smoking, did they ever PLAY ANY FF GAME? did they ever SEE A SUMMONER? i am confused and sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and angry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

---

Have YOU played any FF game?

Or only the ones that agree with your bias?

FFXIV SMN = Rydia from FFIV

FFXIV summons are small because this is an MMO, performance is an issue, screen clutter is an issue.

Give Ifrit's default skill and auto-attack some AoE cleave potential and call it a day.

The FFXIV SMN is an interesting and fun class to play, and if you don't like it, there is always the 5 button tedium of BLM to satisfy your need for big numbers flashing up on the screen every 4 seconds.

So have they actually confirmed any adjustment to bane? Someone in my fc mentioned it yesterday, but I can't find anything online to support it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by horaiyo

So have they actually confirmed any adjustment to bane? Someone in my fc mentioned it yesterday, but I can't find anything online to support it.

---

They have confirmed fixing the tooltip to say what the skill actually does.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ardan

Yes, let's beat this dead horse some more.

---

Lol, seems there's still people waiting with paddles.

Quote:

---

FFXIV SMN = Rydia from FFIV

---

what are you smoking ??? Rydia was black mage / summoner ... with summons ranging from healing with asura, to protection with golem, to utility with carbuncle, or massive destruction with bahamut ... I don't see how Rydia can be called DoT class AT ALL ... who used virus seriously in the end-game ? NO ONE ... people would use bahamut/asura/meteo/flare ... She just has no comparison with a DoT based class like a Warlock.

Summoner at this moment has NOTHING to do with the CORE principles of summoners from the lore. SMN as it stands now is ruined and NOT comparable to the lore instituted in the former FF titles.

Keep the class, call it green mage or something and rebuild SMN from scratch.

Legitimate question - what would be better for Coil? SMN or BLM? Do SMNs get into Coil parties? What would be in higher demand?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MasamuneBranford

Legitimate question - what would be better for Coil? SMN or BLM? Do SMNs get into Coil parties? What would be in higher demand?

---

Depends on the turn.

1 - SMN
2 - SMN
4 - BLM
5 - SMN

SMN actually have a hard time getting into a lot of parties, coil included, mainly due to parsing accuracy issues and stereotypes. So generally speaking, I'd say BLM would be in higher demand, unless the group actually knows the reality of the situation. Generally speaking, there are way fewer SMN than BLM, and considering you probably want one of both, SMN _should_ be in higher demand.

If you suck at the game pick BLM, otherwise whichever one you prefer. Both are desirable.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MasamuneBranford

Legitimate question - what would be better for Coil? SMN or BLM? Do SMNs get into Coil parties? What would be in higher demand?

---

Both classes are very effective in Coil. There are parts of Coil where BLM outshines SMN and parts where SMN outshines BLM. Higher in demand completely depends on your server and the groups of people you are trying to get in with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taerra

what are you smoking ??? Rydia was black mage / summoner ... with summons ranging from healing with asura, to protection with golem, to utility with carbuncle, or massive destruction with bahamut ... I don't see how Rydia can be called DoT class AT ALL ... who used virus seriously in the end-game ? NO ONE ... people would use bahamut/asura/meteo/flare ... She just has no comparison with a DoT based class like a Warlock.

Summoner at this moment has NOTHING to do with the CORE principles of summoners from the lore. SMN as it stands now is ruined and NOT comparable to the lore instituted in the former FF titles.

Keep the class, call it green mage or something and rebuild SMN from scratch.

---

Rydia was a Summoner. That is the name of her job.

She had Black Magic, White Magic and Summon Magic spells. Like many Summoner jobs throughout the history of FF, they've had a diversity of non-Summon magic. Sometimes it is black, sometimes it is white, sometimes they literally have nothing but summons.

There is no definitive template for a Summoner in FF. It is whatever the hell SE makes it to be. The current incarnation of Summoner in FFXIV is most similar to Rydia's implementation of the Job. It has some iconic Black Magic spells, albeit with varying implementations in some cases. It has some White Magic spells. And it has summons.

True enough, that the FFXIV summoner has fewer Summons as a ratio of their total arsenal of ability magic, but it is still very much a Summoner class.

In the end, a Summoner is whatever SE makes it. This is now canon, whether anyone likes it or not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taerra

SMN as it stands now is ruined and NOT comparable to the lore instituted in the former FF titles.

---

You want ruined? Look at the release of SMN back in FFXI. It was probably the worst train wreck I've ever seen. The only summon you got at the start was Carbuncle and it wasn't until several updates later that you got new avatars to play with. They got the lore of the job right at least.

You cannot compare one title's lore to another. The lore of XIV is different to XIII's and is different to XII's and so on. A complete rebuild of the class isn't happening. End of story.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by horaiyo

So have they actually confirmed any adjustment to bane? Someone in my fc mentioned it yesterday, but I can't find anything online to support it.

---

Here ya go,

http://omedon.tumblr.com/post/689910...erview-details

Damn right it is, in my opinion, I don't call what they devised at the moment a summoner, not by tradition at least. I agree that in the end, SE has the big end of the stick, but why stick to an image for so many titles and then warp it completely ?

The summons always had a bigger part to play than the summoner itself or equal in most of the titles. This is not the case in ffxiv, and I'm not talking about the primal themselves here.

Quote:

---

If you suck at the game pick BLM, otherwise whichever one you prefer. Both are desirable.

---

And lol ... you must be a warlock/WoW fanboy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taerra

The summons always had a bigger part to play than the summoner itself or equal in most of the titles. This is not the case in ffxiv, and I'm not talking about the primal themselves here.

---

No it didn't.

Not if you knew what you were doing.

The subject of SMN is very, very touchy to so many of us as we grew up on. SMN is my fave job with WHM just barely behind, I think it is clearly understandable why people could be upset with this job as earlier stated it has always been a huge part of FF lore. I ran what was likely the largest SMN ls in FFXI history my SMN ls was my everything and SMN job was also. Coming here to FFXIV at first I was like wtf?? I have fallen in love with the job and adore throwing on my horn and going to work. Similar to when FFVIII changed them or when FFX made it so they fought on their own in lieu of your party, all things at first where I was like wtf, and later fell in love with.

Quote:

---

No it didn't.

Not if you knew what you were doing.

---

ffx - Yuna - taking control of summons ?
FFIX - Garnet was a summoner/white, big emphasis on summons during the game/lore (odin destroying the world tree)
FF tactics - Complete wreckage of the battlefield.
Same applies to FF3-4-5-6 (espers, again main focus of storyline), even 7 summoning was key, big damage at the cost of big MP.


I dunno, guess we have to agree to disagree, I just don't like the vision of smn in ffxiv. The lore and primals are one thing, Egi's are another. You know, I wouldn't be complaining so much if they gave us a decent basic role (nuke or heal) + a stronger enkindle or tweak some aspects of the Egi. I guess the real bother is the DoT aspect. Nope, not cutting it for me.

FF3 - conjurer/evoker. Summons either have a black or a white effect. Whites tended to buff or debuff, black would attack and ignore monster defense. But what you got was random
Then it upgrades into Summoner, summoner's only summon monsters to use their signature moves.
Then it kind of upgrades into Sage which gets white, black and summons.

FF4 - Rydia. Summons and Black magic. She was definitely a nuker and while Bio/Virus was nice for damage at points (and op in TAY) you drop it for tier 3 spells, leviathan, bahamut and flare end game. Asura and Sylph being more support summons than damage

FF5- A job where you can summon any summon you have bested in battle and buy a few too. Probably the most utility they've ever had with Golem automatically blocking damage, sylph doing the same from 4, carbuncle casting reflect. Still a nuker though

ff6- Anyone can summon their equipped esper once per battle, most of them just do damage but a few offer great support like casting blink on the party and such.

ff7 -anyone can summon and I believe they all just did damage.

Ff8 - Same here, though you could boost their damage if you learned the skill to give their long animations some purpose

FF9 - Eiko and Garnet are both hybrid WHM and Summoners. With Eiko being a better whm and Garnet being a better SMN

FFX - Yuna is another white mage and summoner. This also being the first time summons are playable and take over the party's spot when summoned

FFXI - Took the Yuna step further and about all you do is fight through your summon. Each summon has different roles and useful situations

FFXII - If you find and defeat an esper in combat, then teach it to somebody they can summon the esper by using their quickening bars and again only the summoner and summon are on the field like with Yuna. They fight either for a period of time, or until it or the summoner dies. In the original espers followed their own gambit set. in IZJS you can change their gambits to control them better.

FFXIII - Bikes

So really the FFXIV is different but fine. More often than not the summons were just there as support for the summoner, even the iconic Rydia. The only cases where the summon overshadowed the summoner were 10 and 11

I would also point out that the general consensus in FFXI was lolSMN, I am happy that my group was able to prove that stigma wrong but trust me when I tell you the SMN bitch thread has a very loooong history. Though the FFXIV SMN is not nearly as situational as the FFXI for previously stated reasons though I LOVE my SMN in XI and XIV.

Also you guys forgot FF1 SMN the job was not born yet but even then Bahamut was rocking the world and even back then the SOB was King.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taerra

ffx - Yuna - taking control of summons ?
FFIX - Garnet was a summoner/white, big emphasis on summons during the game/lore (odin destroying the world tree)
FF tactics - Complete wreckage of the battlefield.
Same applies to FF3-4-5-6 (espers, again main focus of storyline), even 7 summoning was key, big damage at the cost of big MP.


I dunno, guess we have to agree to disagree, I just don't like the vision of smn in ffxiv. The lore and primals are one thing, Egi's are another. You know, I wouldn't be complaining so much if they gave us a decent basic role (nuke or heal) + a stronger enkindle or tweak some aspects of the Egi. I guess the real bother is the DoT aspect. Nope, not cutting it for me.

---

In everything you listed Summons are useless and the person using them is better off doing other things.

Kevee what ever happened to your face? It doesn't show up anymore.

Also: the bane change is a tooltip change and so nothing is actually happening with summoners.

The previous change to allow pet commands to be used while using casted abilities was a pretty big buff.

Their motivation for dropping bane is fairly unfounded but there really isn't a reason to fight it as SMN wins any cleave fight.

At least they aren't going the way of WoW where multidotting is almost entirely worthless.

I dunno about you guys but when I think of a Final Fantasy Summoner..what comes to mind is the giant creatures who come in, do a powerful attack in a mini cutscene (Or whatever) and then disappear. I do not remember them for their white/black magic..LOL. I remember having Rydia cast virus cuz I used to think the sound it made was funny as a kid..>.> Haha..and I barely remember Garnet healing, its been so long but I know she did for sure! ; ; One thing I DO remember for sure is the huge summons and such, especially Alexander from FF9. I always used Summoning with Garnet and Eiko.

I don't think of a Final Fantasy Summoner and say "Oh a healer, cool" except with FFXI..lmao. Aphrini I ran an all SMN LS on FFXI too since 2003..hehe mine was called Godhand ^^

However...to do that in FFXIV would be silly. I mean..I don't get it. Can you imagine having the huge, true form of Ifrit in AK and dying to those Howling Lights (Or whatever its called..those balls of light) it would be a joke. I think SMN is okay in FFXIV..it needs some tweaking sure but meh...I don't think there is really a practical way of putting traditional FF summoners into a MMO. Just my opinion. <3

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pandabearcat

The previous change to allow pet commands to be used while using casted abilities was a pretty big buff.

---

Well, how do you explain what Rein said?

Quote:

---

-“YoshiP mentions in 2.1 SMN’s Bane will increase.” So good for them!

---

I don't think he would lie or mistranslated something like that o.O Again, taken from here: http://omedon.tumblr.com/post/689910...erview-details And you can ask him on twitter...o.o With SE you never know...*shrugs*

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Kevee what ever happened to your face? It doesn't show up anymore.

---

I went to a new server. It's not updated for everyone yet.

I think the Bane change yoshi mentioned is just an effective range boost, not more targets. So that if your group of 3 enemies it setup that one is just slightly too far away from the other 2 bane would miss now, it won't miss it in the future.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Madoka

I think the Bane change yoshi mentioned is just an effective range boost, not more targets. So that if your group of 3 enemies it setup that one is just slightly too far away from the other 2 bane would miss now, it won't miss it in the future.

---

That is what I was thinking too, it is either gonna be that or we get to hit more targets *dreams*

Very cool I ran Hornie ls for years on Cerberus :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kevee

In everything you listed Summons are useless and the person using them is better off doing other things.

---

Too bad as previously stated, this has precisely zilcho to do with the recurring thematic design of summoners, which is what people are largely taking issue with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Borfin

Too bad as previously stated, this has precisely zilcho to do with the recurring thematic design of summoners, which is what people are largely taking issue with.

---

Did you even read the post I was responding to?

No?

Here, I'll pull it up for you;

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taerra

The summons always had a bigger part to play than the summoner itself or equal in most of the titles. This is not the case in ffxiv, and I'm not talking about the primal themselves here.

---

And what recurring thematic design? You mean how it was drastically changed in 10, 11, 12 and 13 and no one complained?
The them changed from "big 'powerful' spell/lending of power" to a "companion." Them changing from a strong looking nuke to many smaller actions?

"But Zelia! That's Gameplay!"

No, it ties into theme. The theme of the summons is that they aren't as menacing because they can persist and do more, interact more, than simply be beings of destruction.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Taerra

And lol ... you must be a warlock/WoW fanboy.

---

You're not making any sense. It's well agreed upon that SMN is harder to play than BLM and that nobody likes a bad SMN. I don't see how WoW or warlocks have anything to do with this. Are you so stuck in your ideas of not liking the current implementation of summoners that it's all you can think of when people mention them?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seobit

You're not making any sense. It's well agreed upon that SMN is harder to play than BLM and that nobody likes a bad SMN. I don't see how WoW or warlocks have anything to do with this. Are you so stuck in your ideas of not liking the current implementation of summoners that it's all you can think of when people mention them?

---

SMN plays almost identically to affliction warlocks in WoW. That goes without even saying. I love my SMN, but it plays JUST like my 'lock did.

I, and many others, would prefer a different, unique implementation. This is what this thread is largely about, you realize.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kevee

Did you even read the post I was responding to?

No?

Here, I'll pull it up for you;

---

I did. And I don't think you did (you've shown reading comprehension issues in this very thread after all). The way I read it wasn't "summons do more damage", it's "they have a larger part to play". Which is true - summons have been a strong centerpiece of most of the later Final Fantasy titles. Espers/Magicite, GFs, Eidolons, Aeons have all been an extremely centric part of their respective games. You yourself have admitted this. How much power they had in battle or how much damage they dealt is, again, completely, 100% irrelevant (I didn't see cities disappearing every time I summoned Bahamut in FF9, for example.) You can argue Primals fill this role, and I would agree with you.

Quote:

---

And what recurring thematic design? You mean how it was drastically changed in 10, 11, 12 and 13 and no one complained?
The them changed from "big 'powerful' spell/lending of power" to a "companion." Them changing from a strong looking nuke to many smaller actions?

---

This is probably the first valid point you've made. There's still 6 (7 if you count Tactics) other iterations in the standard franchise that disagree with that however. And in none of the ones you mentioned did summoners utilize Black Magic without cross-classing (or something similar). That's unique to 4, and even then only Bio(/Virus depending on translation) and Poison were DoT effects, and Death of course (loosely) following the theme we have today.

Recurring white magic is present, and we have that. The only other thing they've all had in common was - yeah, of course, summons. Don't get me wrong, I get that for balance purposes we CAN'T have the summon do all the damage - but there's other routes SE could take.

Quote:

---

"But Zelia! That's Gameplay!"

No, it ties into theme. The theme of the summons is that they aren't as menacing because they can persist and do more, interact more, than simply be beings of destruction.

---

...except that if you don't have them cross-class (except for 12, which was... an oddball at best with the license system) of all the games you mentioned the summon was, again, the summoner's primary offensive tool, whether companion or otherwise. That's what I don't like about it. It's a change from my favorite franchise, and that franchise is largely what brought me to FFXIV. I don't want to be a mage who has a summon at his side. I want my summon to be where my power comes from, even if it's just a flavor thing. If I'm casting Hellfire instead of, I don't know, Miasma and it applies the same DoT with the same potency, it's still more in-line with what previous games have done.

That's a personal beef, but this entire thread is about personal beefs, so it's on-topic.

edit: I hadn't considered 13. Technically all of these could apply to 13 with its system. Obviously summons weren't a primary offensive tool in 13, but 13 is also a bit of an outlier. You can make an argument for them going away from the original recurring theme from 3-11, but that's part of what I don't like about it anyway.

Its difficulty of playing or desirability compared to a BLM still has absolutely 0 to do with WoW.

I play a SMN because at release I thought carbuncle was cute. Nothing more, nothing less.

Quote:

---

...except that if you don't have them cross-class (except for 12, which was... an oddball at best with the license system) of all the games you mentioned the summon was, again, the summoner's primary offensive tool, whether companion or otherwise. That's what I don't like about it. It's a change from my favorite franchise, and that franchise is largely what brought me to FFXIV. I don't want to be a mage who has a summon at his side. I want my summon to be where my power comes from, even if it's just a flavor thing. If I'm casting Hellfire instead of, I don't know, Miasma and it applies the same DoT with the same potency, it's still more in-line with what previous games have done.

---

This guy gets it... at least one major point of the post :)