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

I'm curious, what would happen if SE introduced a new flow to SMN where:
1. Either the Egi reacts to specific spells the SMN casts, Say miasma (dot and slow), egi (dps/tank) reacts with it's own (DoT/Enmity)
2. Egi has something to do with Aetherflow stacks of their own, expending one opens up a new skill/spell for us to "chain" off of, (same way other classes have skills open depending on previous skills used). Expend the stack and the egi effectively just turns back into an obey Dot till anther Aetherflow stack is generated.
obviously with this suggestion we would have to sacrifice some of our current skills and place them in the Egi's skill tree. BUT, that makes sense right? We are summoners, not DoT'ers.

@Geracia2: Just...just no.

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Originally Posted by Wolf_Shay

@Geracia2: Just...just no.

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so your ok with using your pet for only about 20% of a fight?
You've got 2 maybe 3 good skills from your pet at a time, the rest are DoTs and time fillers till you re-up on DoTs.
I enjoy how SMN plays now, but to go back to the OP, where does the pet really make you feel like a summoner?

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Originally Posted by Geracia2

so your ok with using your pet for only about 20% of a fight?
You've got 2 maybe 3 good skills from your pet at a time, the rest are DoTs and time fillers till you re-up on DoTs.
I enjoy how SMN plays now, but to go back to the OP, where does the pet really make you feel like a summoner?

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So just nerf damage from the SMN itself and give the pet more skills so you feel more involved. It's still less than 1 year ARR has been out. Sit back, relax, it's going to be a long ride.

People have to remember that the Summoner always had a sub job added to it to make it more useful and since Square decide they wanted the Summoner to be a dps instead of a healer they went with Arcanist. Summoner's as a job don't fight for themselves they summon giant monsters to fight for them and provide support. If players want a true Summoner that commands the pet to perform actions and be the main source of damage they have to make the Summoner itself provide support dps and give the pets more buffs and abilities. A middle ground would be having the Summoner providing single target sustained dps with the pet providing massive 360 degree radius burst dps.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

People have to remember that the Summoner is the only job that evolves into an advanced job called the High Summoner.

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The way I see it, HIGH SMN will have neck pain, with the Gae Bolg size of the future Horn on their foreheads..

Agreed it's old-fashioned SMN, but there is a Limit/Break.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

People have to remember that the Summoner is the only job that evolves into an advanced job called the High Summoner.

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Black Mage => Black Wizard
White Mage => White Wizard
Red Mage => Red Wizard


???????

Monk becomes Bruce Lee.

Egis do need to use their element more like their parent primal
Ifrit uses his fire element to create explosive charges but there is nothing explosive about the Ifrit Egi
Titan is a massive tank that uses his element of earth to grind players into the ground by using weight of the land, tumult and goal but Titan Egi barely uses his earth element or delivers crushing blows.
Garuda uses her element of wind to attack from every angle to cut players down by using rotating twisters, exploding feathers and blink but Garuda Egi seems content with being nuisance.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

Black Mage => Black Wizard
White Mage => White Wizard
Red Mage => Red Wizard


???????

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Every job has mastered version of their job

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Originally Posted by Ardan

Monk becomes Bruce Lee.

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Monk become a Buddha

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Originally Posted by Geracia2

so your ok with using your pet for only about 20% of a fight?
You've got 2 maybe 3 good skills from your pet at a time, the rest are DoTs and time fillers till you re-up on DoTs.
I enjoy how SMN plays now, but to go back to the OP, where does the pet really make you feel like a summoner?

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Let's see. I summon an Egi, I support my Egi by using it's abilities in conjunction with my own, I use Sustain and Physick to keep my Egi on the battlefield, I have to resummon my Egi if it falls in battle. Please, tell me, what about being a Summoner DOESN'T involve the distinct partnership between one's summoned ally and oneself? Summoners were never just one-trick ponies, and once Yuna learned Holy, I never had to summon again except to watch the pretty animations. Play a Black Mage if you're unhappy that your class features don't match up to the ever-changing definition of Summoner.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Summoner's as a job don't fight for themselves they summon giant monsters to fight for them and provide support.

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Where'd you get this idea? FFXI? There were subjobs to augment main jobs. Same for FFT and FFTA/A2 and any other purely job-based FF. In any other FF, summoners were always mixed with other mage types, either tending to focus on healing magic (Yuna in FFX, though you could expand on this thanks to the sphere grid system) or offensive magic (Rydia in FF4). But Summoner has never truly been limited only to summoning, even when that's their primary thing. Also, the way Summoner has functioned in most games is not as an actual pet class. FFX is the first FF game I can think of where it did, and the summons were able to be much more powerful there because they temporarily replaced your entire party. Same for FFXII. In all preceding FFs, the summoner would summon the creature for a single, specific attack, and then it would go away. Honestly, I would like to have seen Summoner be implemented in that manner, but this would turn it into more of a Black Mage, just with very different animations, and would probably need to be more about big burst/low-ish dps than about high dps/low burst. For an MMO, especially when there's already Thm/Blm, this version of Summoner that we have in FFXIV is highly appropriate as it fills a similar role to blm (caster DPS) while doing it in a very different way.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Every job has mastered version of their job

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So what's your point?

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Every job has mastered version of their job

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In FF1. Which did not have summoner.

In FF3 some jobs are obviously better than base ones, but there is no "high summoner". There's Evoker which cannot even control what it summons, and then Summoner that can control what it summons.

That still has nothing to do with FFXIV

The only game in the series which had the term "High Summoner" was, to my knowledge, FF10 and in that game it was more of a title than anything else. Spoiler alert: They only obtained it after they beat Sin with the final summoning and died afterwards. So what Akiza wants is essentially nothing. Brilliant.

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Originally Posted by Ardan

So what Akiza wants is essentially nothing. Brilliant.

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Exactly. All her posts are basically asking for the implementation of a role in a single player game to an mmo, which is obviously not viable (at least in it's raw form) and therefore the posts are borderline trollish.

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Originally Posted by BloodPact

Exactly. All her posts are basically asking for the implementation of a role in a single player game to an mmo, which is obviously not viable (at least in it's raw form) and therefore the posts are borderline trollish.

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Maybe she wants the summoner to kick out 2-3 other players from your group when they use their summon spell and only let them back in when the summon vanishes. That way she can get the big overpowered summons she wants without breaking ACN or making SMN more powerful than it already is. Who gives a shit if you're intentionally preventing other players from playing? You've got a giant monster under your control!

I would smash my keyboard in frustration if a job had a mechanic that prevented party members from participating in gameplay in exchange for overpowered nonsense.

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Originally Posted by Ardan

I would smash my keyboard in frustration if a job had a mechanic that prevented party members from participating in gameplay in exchange for overpowered nonsense.

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I have that same symptom whenever I read a post by Akiza...

Can we let this thread die already?

This start to be nonsense

I thought this was relevant. I'm still looking at all of the DPS jobs to see what I like, so we'll have to find out later if this discussion pertains to me at all or not.

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Originally Posted by Advocatus

I thought this was relevant. I'm still looking at all of the DPS jobs to see what I like, so we'll have to find out later if this discussion pertains to me at all or not.

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That video is a little out-dated. SMN can't use Thunder anymore, though not sure how big of an impact that would have on the video's assessment.

I never play the SMN. Don't need to I have this wonderfull pet that they gave me I called Gizzard. Along with my little Farie buddy I focus on doing damage, He Tanks and my little farie buddy keeps us both healed.

The only qualm I have with this class is that Garuderp is too sronk. Take Contagion away from her and give it too the summoner. Same recast and duration don't alter a thing. I'm sure someone has already mentioned that this spell is useful; adds longevity to dots adds the damage and saves the mp. With that said, perhaps we can gain some utility via Egi Group favors? Can we assume the role that bards currently aren't? I have a bunch of theories I'd like to post but this is the main concern.

How About a Trait that Let's you Summon two Pets at a Time?

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Yeah Imbalanced... But Make it something Available After 50/55/60 or so.


Also Summoning the Primal's Themselves would be a Bad idea... "Look i'm Summoning Ifrit for Help Against these Enemies.... Ow What.. he just Tempered them all? Shit."
You Get into a Battle too the Death with a FRAGMENT of the Primal... too learn how too summon that Tiny Piece. You have too be Strong enough too kill it yourself, you honestly think Buffing the Pet that you Have too Fight (And yes I Want it too be the Same Version you Summon not some Weakarse thing you can just walk over) is a Good idea?

Your Willpower and Knowledge need to be Good enough too beat it or it Will kill you. The Art is Extinct for more then just one Reason guys....

What you are proposing could only happen as you stated in later content; maybe even with further tweaking of the Limit break when SE chooses to make them more job specific. What we should look at is embellishing the current state of this job. I do hope in the near future we could abandon the egi's as they are for the full primal -- but it's likely not to happen.

What I suggest are slight changes on what exists, and wouldn't be to harsh on the Dev team ( or so I think ) keep in mind this is just a collective thought. Balance is something that could be an issue however I'm sure people who main a job have their reasons to tweak the play style.
( gotta divide this to a double post 1 of 2 )

(post 2 of 2)
Summoning more than one pet would make this job feel mighty; I often though if we gave up an atherflow reducing the stock pile amount to 2, then we could summon an additional pet. Micro managing them would come down to the players ability to do so.

Ifrit's self-buff has a good theory too it, what if we removed that for a group favor? His would be 3% damage increase to melee and 2% fire to those in range of him.
Garuderp is the main chicken mostly because Contagion is a must, remove it from her give it to the summoner. In it's place Garuda's favor increases either the chance to increase spell speed or increase it at a flat rate for all party members in range.
Titan is really good, I'm open to anything with him or we can stay the way he is. Perhaps something reduced party damage? idfk.

The only thing square needs to do to rebalance the Egis is remove radiant shield from Ifrit and replace it with explosive charge because that is Ifrit's only problem.
If square wants to add new skills and buffs to the Summoner and Egis or make major changes they can do that when they raise the level cap.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

The only thing square needs to do to rebalance the Egis is remove radiant shield from Ifrit and replace it with explosive charge because that is Ifrit's only problem.
If square wants to add new skills and buffs to the Summoner and Egis or make major changes they can do that when they raise the level cap.

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Of course; I agree completely that any changes would be done in later content, not hotfixing the current state. The class would evolve with the time to come; which is what i was suggesting. Re-balancing Ifrit in particular would mean a lot more than replacing that one spell I feel.

My main concern, and I am repeating myself here, are PROCs.
We have no PROCs.

Give us a Fester PROC or another Aetherflow stack.
The latter is preferred to the former but I am more than happy to go through a full rotation in order to use the Fester PROC.

There is not much wrong with summoners and their pets and personally I think that we are quite likely to see another pet coming up.
We have three pets linked to the original primals.
New primals been released, Leviathan and even Mog and with the upcoming Ramuh there is a big chance that we will get another Pet.
It would be great to see a Mog Pet with some support skills like Haste and even Mimic?

Why does SMN need procs? Isn't the crux of the issue that it plays exactly like ACN with no real feel of SMN? What would procs do to alleviate that issue?

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Originally Posted by Exstal

Why does SMN need procs? Isn't the crux of the issue that it plays exactly like ACN with no real feel of SMN? What would procs do to alleviate that issue?

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It's such a shame that Monks play like Pugilists, White Mages are Conjurers, and Black Mages are Thaumaturges. Summoner, along with the other jobs, is an extension of the base class, Arcanist. Instead of saying that it doesn't feel like a Summoner, maybe you should define what a Summoner is and how that isn't represented.

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Originally Posted by Wolf_Shay

It's such a shame that Monks play like Pugilists, White Mages are Conjurers, and Black Mages are Thaumaturges. Summoner, along with the other jobs, is an extension of the base class, Arcanist. Instead of saying that it doesn't feel like a Summoner, maybe you should define what a Summoner is and how that isn't represented.

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I personally don't care about SMN, but the person I quoted isn't making a very sensible case.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

I personally don't care about SMN, but the person I quoted isn't making a very sensible case.

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Oh...you're referring to me.
Let me clarify;

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Proc
(acr.) (v.) Processed Random Occurrence. Origin comes from MUD, a dated multiplayer online text-based fantasy game. Proc refers to when an additional effect created by a weapon randomly occurs.
(acr.) (n.) Processed Random Occurrence.

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http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Di...erms_and_Slang

Example: Free Succor when Sacred Soil is cast.

A summoner will play like an Arcanist because it is based on the same stats and play-style i.e. DOTs and pets.
Would you mind clarifying what you would expect from a summoner?

I didn't ask what a proc is. I asked why SMN needs procs.

If you sat through and read the last 63 pages, excluding posts by Akiza because he's delusional, you'll notice that many of the summoners want to feel like their job title. More interaction with pets, less dots (not going to happen). Then you came in with a suggestion that addressed nothing of the sort.

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Originally Posted by BinaryJack

We have no PROCs.

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So are Monks, Dragoons, Paladins and Warriors. Not every jobs rely on procs. Deal with it.

Summoner's gaining the ability to summon the primal isn't a delusion because in every Final Fantasy players never summoned the boss mode magic beasts. Even in Final Fantasy X and XI Summoner's never summoned to boss mod Aeon or Avatar.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Summoner's gaining the ability to summon the primal isn't a delusion because in every Final Fantasy players never summoned the boss mode magic beasts. Even in Final Fantasy X and XI Summoner's never summoned to boss mod Aeon or Avatar.

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But in most any other FF, summons were merely "You cast a spell, the summoned being appears and does its signature attack, then it leaves." That's not a pet class, though. That's just a black mage with a different set of spell visuals.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Snip

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It is delusional, the Primals themselves are, within the cannon of FFXIV, uncontrollable god-beasts. Even the Beastmen tribes have no real control over them outside of the seeming obligation they have to the race that can summon them. And, as shown with Leviathan, that obligation is shaky at best.

What makes you think that these Primals would lower themselves to being controlled by any Mortal race.

Predicted responses:
1. "Because that's what they did in other FF's." This isn't the other FF's.
2. "Because that's what summoners do." Define "what summoners do"? We summon an Egi, thus Summoners. And, as other people have mentioned, other FF's where the summoner isn't a standalone job or an equip skill, A summoner has always been mixed with something else. e.g Black or White Mage.
3. "Because IIIIIII want flashy showoff powers which make me feel special." Now you are just being selfish.
4. "Because FFXI..." See 1.