So you've given SMN a role, but...

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Originally Posted by HeyAFunkyFish

But I want to throw my Deathbringer. I didn't save up 990 Eso so I could actually USE the thing. ;)

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I will quote Delily and say "stop comparing class to past iterations and focus on current design". A design where the only things worth throwing are daggers and a Fuma Shuriken. *shrug*

I mean why make it complex and have to choose weapons of varying potency strength when we can just get flat guaranteed damage off a Fuma. Options are for sissies.

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Surprisingly I've often wondered why we couldn't have an ability that makes the Pet explode and do AoE damage when our Pet dies.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I will quote Delily and say "stop comparing class to past iterations and focus on current design"

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What I read: "Stop comparing FF jobs to previous FF jobs and focus on what players that didn't experience most of the franchise want from the game".

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

What I read: "Stop comparing FF jobs to previous FF jobs and focus on what players that didn't experience most of the franchise want from the game".

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That's exactly how I felt when I read it initially as well.

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

What I read: "Stop comparing FF jobs to previous FF jobs and focus on what players that didn't experience most of the franchise want from the game".

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He's right though, at least in SMNs case.

This is a job that has never been the same across FF. On top of that its main gimmick has never been enough to keep the job sustainable without either borrowing from other elements (like the ability to cast black or white magic), or making said gimmick a universal feature that all players can do (e.g. VII, VIII). Even the pet mechanic I've seen people pushing so much is only a recent adaptation of the role, so to me the XIV SMN is simply another iteration in the line of iterations this job has already gone through.

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Originally Posted by FeliAiko

He's right though, at least in SMNs case.

This is a job that has never been the same across FF. On top of that its main gimmick has never been enough to keep the job sustainable without either borrowing from other elements (like the ability to cast black or white magic), or making said gimmick a universal feature that all players can do (e.g. VII, VIII). Even the pet mechanic I've seen people pushing so much is only a recent adaptation of the role, so to me the XIV SMN is simply another iteration in the line of iterations this job has already gone through.

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FeliAko has it right. There is no consistent experience for a summoner.

FF1&2: Job not present.
FF3 to FF9: Summons are casting animations that do AoE effects.
FF10 - Summons actually joined Yuna in a fight, but the other 2 left out.
FF11 - Players were the proxy to the summons.
FF12 - FF10 style summons? I've never really played 12.
FF13 - FF10 style summons.
FF14 - DoT + pet.

In the vast majority of the main games in the series, the summons were glorified casting animations. That works well in the console games For the MMORPGS, not so much, mainly because you run up against the question of "how does this differ from BLM?"

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I mean why make it complex and have to choose weapons of varying potency strength when we can just get flat guaranteed damage off a Fuma. Options are for sissies.

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That's easy; in MMOs, options are nothing but an illusion. People will simply choose the mathematically superior choice and use it. From a developer perspective, too many options introduces complexity that leads to endless balancing and tweaking. Look at the patch notes for games like WoW, Diablo 2, Diablo 3, Everquest, Dark Age Of Camelot, etc. A large section of them are tweaks for skills on classes.

The notes for 3.1, on the other hand, has only a brief section on job adjustments. Amazingly enough, this lets the team focus on bringing new content like the Void Ark, LoV, the Diadem, etc.

Do you want the constant tweaks, nerfs, and buffs that come with an overly complex character system, or would you rather have more things to do?

I'm all for new content. But for me the most exciting thing for me to see is new skills for a class I specialize in. Which won't happen until another expansion most likely. Who knows if we'll get any new traits either. We didn't for HW. I honestly get more enjoyment out of the new dungeons then I do Void Ark or Diadem. The boss fights are a lot more fun at least for me they are. Void Ark I only run a few times a week just to get my gated drops. I can't stand Diadem at all. It isn't that fun to me.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Void Ark I only run a few times a week just to get my gated drops. I can't stand Diadem at all. It isn't that fun to me.

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Agreed. Gated drops and Pegasus mount. I can't even bring myself to legitimately grind Diadem for gear.

While I'm not a fan of the dot playstyle I can't really complain since it's part of Arcanist and not Summoner. What I'm not a fan of is the lack of consistency when it comes to Summoner. Shouldn't all abilities that you learn through the Summoner Quest Line be related to the job, to the art of summoning?
Abilities like Fester and Tridisaster shouldn't in my opinion be Summoner abilites since they aren't relatable to summoning. They are, in my opinion, Arcanist abilities.
I'm not saying that they should be Arcanist abilites because that would make Scholar unbalanced. Also, in Heavensward, they chose to drop the original summoner style for a completely different style which in my opinion isn't summoning but actually invoking the power of Bahamut.

My conclusion is that I find that Summoner right now feels like a mishmash of abilities justified by the lore and story. It is, in my opinion as a fan of the series, immersion breaking.
I hope that they, somewhere in the future, will fix this but, at the same time, I don't think they will.

Ps. My grammar is a bit lacking, I think, but I hope it's at least readable.

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Originally Posted by Delily

For the MMORPGS, not so much, mainly because you run up against the question of "how does this differ from BLM?"

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this would be valid if the current SMN rotation consist primarily of using pet commands, it does not.

they could've build SMNs like Ninjas, give them 3 runes and different orders put them into different avatar stances and different stances would mean the available spells change. instead of Bio, Miasma, you would have Ifrit stance and a Burn DOT, a Ramuh stance and a lightning DOT, instead of Miasma II you would go into Garuda-trance and call Tornado that would put up an AOE wind DOT.

that would be vastly different from BLM because you need to change stances to cast the right spells, and you would still have to manage Astral Flow stacks for strong abilities like Inferno, Tidal Wave, Deathflare, etc.

BLM strong abilities are done via long cast time and/or huge MP consumption.

SMN without a pet would still be limited by some kind of Aetherflow like charge mechanic where it's more about managing that resource.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

this would be valid if the current SMN rotation consist primarily of using pet commands, it does not.

they could've build SMNs like Ninjas, give them 3 runes and different orders put them into different avatar stances and different stances would mean the available spells change. instead of Bio, Miasma, you would have Ifrit stance and a Burn DOT, a Ramuh stance and a lightning DOT, instead of Miasma II you would go into Garuda-trance and call Tornado that would put up an AOE wind DOT.

that would be vastly different from BLM because you need to change stances to cast the right spells, and you would still have to manage Astral Flow stacks for strong abilities like Inferno, Tidal Wave, Deathflare, etc.

BLM strong abilities are done via long cast time and/or huge MP consumption.

SMN without a pet would still be limited by some kind of Aetherflow like charge mechanic where it's more about managing that resource.

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There's no elemental wheel in this game, what good would a Lighting DoT provide over a Fire DoT?

Your idea, however, isn't fundamentally different than how BLM currently works. They stance dance to have periods of heavy damage and periods of recovery. The SMN, as a DoT class, is more about consistent damage with an opportunity for some burst damage.

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Originally Posted by Delily

There's no elemental wheel in this game, what good would a Lighting DoT provide over a Fire DoT?

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nothing, it's the same difference as Bio and Miasma, it's two DoTs that you can apply concurrently. it's just more inline with being a Summoner than Bio and Miasma, which has zero to do with summoning but somehow those lines of spells provide over 50% of their damage.

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Originally Posted by Delily

Your idea, however, isn't fundamentally different than how BLM currently works.

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it's just as different as the current SMN.

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Originally Posted by Delily

The SMN, as a DoT class, is more about consistent damage with an opportunity for some burst damage.

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SMN can be a DoT class without a pet. what i said doesn't make them not a DoT class, it just makes them more of a Summoner and less of an Arcanist.

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Originally Posted by pushin_tin

Would this class be insanely complicated? Yeah.
Would it practically require addon usage to optimize? Probably.
Would it be insanely OP? Of course.

Would it be the most fun **** to play ever? HELL YAH!

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I really wish this was the aim with which most jobs started.
Sign of a great class -> feeling slightly overwhelmed even as a veteran and feeling totally OP when technically not.

Most of my thoughts on potential Summoner revisions have revolved around much the same. Tried to make it so resources (e.g. AF) can be spent on:
- Caster direct damage/effects (e.g. Fester, Bane, Deathflare, Energy Drain)
- Pet direct damage/effects (two more abilities per pet that consume resource)
- Caster buffs - via pet (gain a gameplay-changing buff based on your current pet and adjusting certain attacks into a particular elemental aspect which will have differing synergy with other aspects added from other pets - stacks up to twice)
- Pet buff (accelerating cooldowns, attack speed, and regeneration, and improving certain linked effects, fading over time and use - each comes with a size increase - stacks up to 3 times)

And where several actions can make unique use of consuming your pet. Generally a lot more pet swapping, even without consuming. More use of 'rifts' and quick-casting.

Hiding all this because I'm way too tired right now to finish anything coherently but also keeping what little I have because want to remind myself of this line of thought later...

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Originally Posted by pushin_tin

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Originally Posted by Tsilyi

yeah but... what about King Moggle Mog invocation? :<

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This is one of the most frequent issues I see whenever some people propose ways to "fix" SMN:

What about any other summon that gets implemented further down the line (or was implemented in-between)?

It's already bad enough that most don't consider the potential consequences for changing a class/job (since these ALWAYS affect others in one way or another); limiting the number of "summons" a SMN can have from the get-go would add even more problems.

Like making people complain about "why X wasn't included/made available for SMN"?

I really just want to replace garuda with king moggle mog because it would be cute. I do like the current toolkit, though sometimes i do think summoner is not exactly how i would have expected the class to be from the outset. That said, I'm not sure they ARE going to implement more summons. They seem to have started to move away from pets as a whole as they did not give summoner pets any more abilities and shifted everything instead to trance. I'm honestly really curious as to what they will possibly do with summoner next expansion. DWT is a big deal and it will be difficult to expand on that particular repertoire.

e: fyi my post you quoted was strictly in response to another person's class ideas, you know that, right? I liked their fun and interesting ideas for another different take on summoner, so i wanted to see what kind of abilities they would design for a moggle-mog trance/invocation :p

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Originally Posted by Tsilyi

e: fyi my post you quoted was strictly in response to another person's class ideas, you know that, right? I liked their fun and interesting ideas for another different take on summoner, so i wanted to see what kind of abilities they would design for a moggle-mog trance/invocation :p

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Yeah I know.

I replied to the previous quote with your quote as "proof" that most other people ignore any other summon that came in between and will come after.

I too would be interested in a Good King Moggle Mog XII summon, even if it's a "glamour". ;)

Personally, I'd like it if the pet was our weapon. Every skill we use is channeled through the pet. It dies, and all you have is book smacking until you summon again.

Hi, I'm going to ask you to move all discussions in this thread to this thread:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ad-3.0-Edition

We're having three threads on the same subject at the same time which is kind of a mess...

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

but i've been of the opinion that Summoning in FF MMOs would work better as trances/stances and not as pets for a long time now. Ifrit Mode cast Inferno, Titan Mode cast Landslide, etc.

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They can't do that; all the BUM--I mean Blue Mage, of course--fanatics would be upset at burning a Form/Mode ability set mechanic on SMN.

I think Bio and Miasma doesn't look like Summoner spells is because they aren't. They are Arcanist spells. I think if they changed it to Burn, Rasp, or Choke would already be much better, like we are channeling the primals energy. Just a name and animation change, leave SCH with the poisons. Adding to the fact of how stupid the egis looks, we do have a lot of unsastified smns. I think it was a waste the pets didnt have new skills on HW, they could have made a lot of stuff that combo with the summoner just like Contagion does. Maybe a mini fester burst for Ifrit or ground target Tornado AoE for Garuda.