On Xelphatol and the Actual Summoner.

SMN is a joke because they tied it to ACN and outdated 1.0 ideas.

it needs to be split off ACN completely and let it be its own thing..

All 3 jobs needs to be its own thing.

Once this is done give us real SMN looking weapons, books should be ACN only thing.

I disagree,

The Summoner is just fine as is. It's one of the Top damaging jobs in the game. And I actually like the book and the pet Aesthetic... if you guys are talking about going back to that POS that was the FFXI summoner, I won't be playing one anymore. That thing really stunk on ice.

Your pet actually drained your MP just having it out and it was continuous. You couldn't solo with it because it would suck you dry before you killed the mob. And more importantly... the powers it used were weak as hell compared to any spell cast by the Black Mages, so you didn't even get THAT much for all your trouble of having to beat them in a very tough instance fight just to get the Summon itself.

Even the level 50 spell Ultima for the BLMs.... though it was incredibly costly MP wise and took 16 seconds to cast... at the very least it was major damage and damn near take out a mob in one shot.

I can't say that about anything the Summoner was capable of with ANY of its Summons. Carbunkle was the only one you could have out that could fight and wouldn't drain you completely... unfortunately it was also weak as hell and got crushed by any mob it went against.

At the VERY least THIS incarnation of the SMN in FFXIV is viable and powerful... the FFXI Summoner was anything but that.

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Originally Posted by AmalonStar

The whole point of this thread is about the fact SMN on XIV is more of a joke on the SMN job, every FF game ever made SMN has always been based around the use of alot of different SMN's with different abilities and strengths.

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And in those games, the summons are basically attack spells with sprite artwork instead of particle effects. Or involved things that would be overpowered as hell in an MMO (see: FFX's version of summons).

"B-but FFXI": The problem with XI's summons is that despite there being several avatars to choose from, they were stupidly weak when compared to player characters, since players can manipulate their stats via gear swaps while avatars (and BST pets, for that matter) cannot. This is why for the longest time avatars were worthless and SMNs had to be turned into gimped White Mages to get parties. Sure, Astral Flow was powerful, but an ability on a 2-hour cooldown doesn't justify how badly implemented SMN was.

You may have forgotten, but I remember a time when SMNs pretty much brought out Carby for healing ruby and spammed cure the rest of the time. And that was assuming the SMN had carby mitts, an HQ light staff and the karate gi to nullify the perpetuation costs.

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Any true ff fan doesn't like when they stray too far from from what the classic job roles are in ff games and the various elements that have always defined the series, take the movie ff spirits within when that had come out the shear outrage from the ff fans was huge because it had nothing in it that related to ff at all.

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Guess I'm not a true fan, though I've been playing FF games for almost 20 years at this point. This isn't an all-or-nothing type of situation. There's stuff that simply does not work when crossing into the MMO space.

This is not even taking lore into account. FFXIV's SMN is tied to the rules the writers and the devs have for primals. A summoner cannot call upon a full primal because a) they'd be difficult to control, b) you're likely to get tempered as a result (PS: in case you forgot, the guy in Xelphatol is a tempered thrall of Garuda), and c) it would take an insane amount of aether. That's why the entire 30-50 questline is about using residual aether from your fights with primals to summon a sliver of their power.

What has not helped is that the devs then changed the direction of primals by changing them from gods that are given form through faith into ideas (and in some cases, outright lies) that are created and given form through faith. These aren't the sentient guardians of the world like in FFXI, who you could make pacts with and talk to. These are ideas that were given form by the mortal races. As per the current rules, I could draw Sanic The Hegdehog on a piece of paper, and with enough prayers and crystals bring it to life as a primal. It sounds silly, but this is what the writers have opened themselves up to. And these sort of things do have an adverse effect on SMN.

Also, if you want to complain about anything relating to SMN's design, I'd start with where the job was taken with Heavensward. Everything implemented since 3.0 looks like a blatant admission that the devs have given up on the pet system and developing Egis. This is despite there being things that could be done to them along with the SMN to better flesh out their gameplay.

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I get them wanting to try and put a new take on things but they shouldn't stray too far from what the jobs roots are, if they want to make a well known job and make it into something its not they should be making completely new jobs rather than labeling them with a classic job name.

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They'd have to move away from way the job is represented in older games no matter what they did.

I mean, they could have gone the route of Spirit Shapers from Revelation Online. Or maybe the summoners from Lost Ark Online. The problem with both is that making summons appear for a few seconds and disappear makes the job look more like a fancy BLM that spends their MP faster. You could try focusing on the pet, but put too much focus and you end up with the mess from FFXI, where you basically sit on your hands while waiting for Blood Pact to come off cooldown.

What the devs started with (WoW's demonology Warlock) was a good starting point. Then they gave up on pets. And that's something more people should be taking SE to task for, not complaining that egis are not big enough or why they don't look like primals.

Shameless plug, but here's something I wrote on SMN.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

I disagree,

The Summoner is just fine as is. It's one of the Top damaging jobs in the game. And I actually like the book and the pet Aesthetic...

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I guess this topic is not about dps-ranking but more about the identity and mechanic this cls is designed. compared to summoner in offline titles they are just not what u could understand under its definition. They don't use DoTs or Books - they are known for heavy impact skills with a longer cast time: BOOM. (Though the LB3 is the only thing which really fits the offline definition of a summoner for me). And they use 2handed staffs don't they? at least in FFT which I really like if its come to smn cls at all.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Personally, I think Summoner in the context of FFXIV is actually up there with Scholar / Warrior as the better designed jobs (in terms of skill interactions / job mechanics / etc).
I do agree that it doesn't feel much like a 'Summoner' in the traditional sense.

I don't think they should change the DoT / utility focus that Summoner has, but it would be nice to see more interaction with the pets. Right now you just kind of press Obey and forget about them unless they're dying. Rouse and Spur are great, but they don't really require any sort of interaction with the pet (it's not going to do anything differently because of those abilities). Or pressing their cooldowns in-between Wind Blade / the Ifrit one etc for more damage.

I think more abilities that involve both the Summoner and the pet would go a long way to making the class feel more 'traditional'. Abilities like Enkindle that gives more of a 'using the power of the primals' feel to the job.

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yeah absolutely this - its like mindreading :3


@comparising smns at all
SE played around with their "summon" mechanic very much if you take a look at f.e. ff7 (just big boom) ff8 (big boom but with a behavior system of the GFs), ffx (first "pet-time" - they stay on the battlefield and are controllable with different skills and own LP-bar), ffxiii (every character got his own personal one in different forms, even using them as mounts). - so if we talk about summoners identity we shouldn't compare it to a specific title but about what we would expect to work in an MMO. For me it's like Silver said, id love to see more egi-related skills like enkindle or the fairys support skills, different stances or stances finisher like Deathflare – or potd pots which could work like yunas summons in ffx *jammi*

no matter how but SE should increase the pet-interaction and shouldn't just focus on dots/burst...

:3

Needs more Pet skills. Their respective skill trees ended at lvl 40. We are level 60 now. Would love to hear their reasoning on this.

I don't know when some people in this thread last seriously played SMN on FFXI, but I think it's a fair bet to say it wasn't within the last 5 years, possibly even 10. As I mentioned on the last page, you are all referring to the state of XI's summoner from almost a decade ago as if it's the current iteration. It was certainly a complete disaster back then, but a lot has changed, and it's kind of embarrasing to read people mentioning carbuncle mitts as if they're still something relevant to SMN in XI.

XI still exists, contrary to popular belief, and I continue to play SMN on XI on an almost daily basis. The concept of XI's SMN is not flawed - the job currently functions very well. SE's support for the SMN they created was flawed because there was effectively no equipment to support it for a very long time. Consider a scenario where XIV's BLM only has access to VIT gear and you'll have an approximate idea of what things were like.

Yes, SMN in XI used to have rather pathetic potencies on most of its abilities, partly through this complete lack of gear. That is bad balancing, not a flaw in the job's direction.

Today, SMN in XI enjoys its own equipment with pet stats. It has decent potencies on most of its blood pacts. It's primary role is dealing damage, and it also brings with it some useful support abilities. I've not been asked to be a healer as SMN in XI for more years than I can remember. And it's still a pet job. Fundamentally, it functions exactly as it did before. The mechanics haven't changed. The blood pacts are the same, the pets are the same, the job abilities that control them are the same. SE just figured out how the job operates.

If people don't like pet-focused jobs then that's fine - it's all about personal preferences. Please just stop complaining about XI's SMN in the same sentence as mentioning carbuncle mitts, crippling perpetuation costs and soloing bombs, because Rise of the Zilart is thirteen years old. You are talking about something completely different to those discussing SMN in the current day of FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

If people don't like pet-focused jobs then that's fine - it's all about personal preferences. Please just stop complaining about XI's SMN in the same sentence as mentioning carbuncle mitts, crippling perpetuation costs and soloing bombs, because Rise of the Zilart is thirteen years old.

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You do realize of course the EQ Summoner and the EQ Necromancer were pet classes right?

And you do Realize this iteration plays very similar to those right?

In other words... you know... if you enjoyed playing those... and playing the current iteration of the Summoner class in FFXIV that you probably DO like playing pet classes?

And no I'm not sold on your "theory" that somehow the FFXI summoner is now better... The entire game was taken down to a low power level low challenge level compared to what it use to be... so is it that the FFXI Summoner suddenly and mysteriously got THAT much better?

Or is it that the Game Challenge was weakened enough that the FFXI Summoner now can participate when prior it no longer could... That is what I seriously question. Because it doesn't sound like the base mechanic of the Original Changed all that much...

Perhaps you misunderstood what I was trying to say - I really do like playing pet classes! I just don't like XIV's SMN, and don't play it, because the pet I summon is basically a DoT that I can summon and ignore. Spamming DoTs and direct nukes is fine, and I have no problem with classes that use these mechanics, but I certainly don't expect them to be advertised to me as a summoner. A pet-focused job is different to a job that has a "fire and forget" pet that essentially doesn't do anything.

I don't want to be blunt here, but I've been playing XI's SMN since the times when it was undeniably broken, as people (including myself) have been describing, and I'm still playing pretty much daily. I would say based on my direct experiences that I am qualified to make a decent statement regarding how SMN has changed, and I did my best to describe this in my previous post. If my words aren't convincing you then I am afraid there's not much more I can say!

Suddenly and mysteriously? Certainly not. I tried to illustrate how these changes have come about. SE actually recognises that we need class-specific gear now, because in XI (unlike XIV), pet stats are unique and not connected to the player's MND, INT and so on. They didn't bother with that for a long time. They've lowered our recast times, increased the potency of most of our abilities, increased our ability to synergise with other players using other jobs. This isn't some baffling metamorphosis with no explanation - it's been a progression as the game has developed.

The challenge level of XI is certainly different, but to say it is lower is completely incorrect in my opinion. Lots of things have been made much more convenient, and a lot of the really awful things like multi hour long pop windows have been abolished, but those things were never hard, just deeply boring and unpleasant. The real challenges we face in XI vary from patch to patch, as do those in any game, but there is still content that is very difficult to complete with any consistency, just as there always has been.

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

Perhaps you misunderstood what I was trying to say - I really do like playing pet classes! I just don't like XIV's SMN, and don't play it, because the pet I summon is basically a DoT that I can summon and ignore. Spamming DoTs and direct nukes is fine, and I have no problem with classes that use these mechanics, but I certainly don't expect them to be advertised to me as a summoner. A pet-focused job is different to a job that has a "fire and forget" pet that essentially doesn't do anything..

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My friend... with all due respect here... that IS how the EQ Summoner and the EQ Necromancer worked... they were pet classes and incredibly powerful.

Its painfully obvious to me the FFXIV Devs went with a formula they know works... rather than attempt another abortion that was the FFXI Summoner.

This is a true pet class. And its even better than the EQ Summoner ad EQ Necromancer with regards to pet interaction.

What if ... when you used enkindle..your egi changed to actual primal and do the signature then turned back to egi.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

My friend... with all due respect here... that IS how the EQ Summoner and the EQ Necromancer worked... they were pet classes and incredibly powerful.

Its painfully obvious to me the FFXIV Devs went with a formula they know works... rather than attempt another abortion that was the FFXI Summoner.

This is a true pet class. And its even better than the EQ Summoner ad EQ Necromancer with regards to pet interaction.

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I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage as I don't know anything about these classes or the game they belong to. Whether they advertised themselves as pet jobs or not, if they are similar to XIV's SMN then they are not what this thread is about, which is pets that function in a meaningful and impactful way. No-one is going to argue that SMN doesn't have a pet at all, but even MCH has a pet. It's a pet job. No-one is going to convince me that MCH pet interaction is remotely stimulating.

It's also really important to note that the power of a job is literally meaningless in the context of this sort of discussion. It's the foundation that it's built upon that is relevant here - how it operates, not how big the numbers are. XIV's BLM forced into VIT gear with quartered spell potency still has a viable model - the numbers are literally irrelevant. XIV's current SMN may be a powerful damage dealer - again, completely irrelevant when we're discussing the basic foundations that the job is constructed upon.

In fact, I agree with you that FFXIV developers went with a formula that works mechanically, and that's an admirable approach! It's simply not an approach that I feel correlates with what we know about the Summoner job from Final Fantasy's history.

My original response was intended to demonstrate that some people's attitudes towards XI's SMN are outdated and flawed, in an attempt to prove that it is a valid model for pet jobs to emulate. All that was needed to transform it from the broken and ineffective job of 5-10 years ago to the useful, welcomed and uniquely capable job it is today was changing some numbers. To go back to a previous example, putting our XIV BLM back into the INT gear.

I don't want to put words into your mouth, but from my persecptive it appears that you have already formed an opinion on the matter that you aren't interested in changing. I don't really want to keep repeating myself.

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It's simply not an approach that I feel correlates with what we know about the Summoner job from Final Fantasy's history.

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By this time, after a thousand and one threads on the exact same topic that simply refuses to die, all I can tell these critics is get with the programme or move on.

As someone who was a career RDM in FFXI, I still vividly remember all the endless bitching about how Square-Enix butchered the job, and turned it into something that's not meant to be in the "Final Fantasy's history".

Let me introduce all such critics to a simple word: Innovation.

I'm totally fine with each and every iteration of Final Fantasy coming up with unique interpretations of "classic" jobs. Sometimes the interpretations resonate; sometimes they don't. But ultimately, it's how well they play within the game's mechanics that matters.

I happen to enjoy FFXIV's iteration of SMN. I think it's an eminently sensible way to implement a pet class; having also played pet classes in other MMORPGs, I'm all too aware of the danger of pushing too much of a job's functionality onto its pets — the moment the pet dies, the player-character is as good as gimped and, quite quickly, dead.

It seems to me that those who keep complaining of this version of the SMN aren't simply unable to keep an open mind, and allow nostalgia to dictate their preferences.

If you don't like the job, that's fine. It's your game. Just don't presume that you speak for all the rest of us who actually enjoy the job as it's currently implemented. Go play something else you enjoy.

And, oh, by the way, I'm already quite prepared to see the same flood of complaints if Stormblood's version of the RDM yet again turns out to be too different from the "traditional" template. Twelve forbid!

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

As someone who was a career RDM in FFXI, I still vividly remember all the endless bitching about how Square-Enix butchered the job, and turned it into something that's not meant to be in the "Final Fantasy's history".

Let me introduce all such critics to a simple word: Innovation.

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Innovation was Enspells and Phalanx. Those actually built on the idea of what a guy with a sword that could cast spells would be able to do (they figured out that combining magic with what physical ability they had made up for the lack of raw strength and raw defense). What the job became after that was the lovechild of a Time Mage and Oracle that was then reduced to an MP battery.

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I happen to enjoy FFXIV's iteration of SMN. I think it's an eminently sensible way to implement a pet class; having also played pet classes in other MMORPGs, I'm all too aware of the danger of pushing too much of a job's functionality onto its pets — the moment the pet dies, the player-character is as good as gimped and, quite quickly, dead.

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There are ways to design pets so that they'll die if you're careless while also reducing the chance of your pets dying from getting breathed on by the mob. You can also tie DPS gains to pets without interfering with the master's rotation much (ex: a cooldown that consumes a stack of Aetherflow that increases damage output of egis and temporarily makes them "evolve" into something that is a bit closer to the primal they're based on). Having pets gain small damage buffs on targets affected by your DoTs wouldn't hurt either, and would even accentuate the connection between master and pet.

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It seems to me that those who keep complaining of this version of the SMN aren't simply unable to keep an open mind, and allow nostalgia to dictate their preferences.

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The direction the job has taken can almost be called schizophrenic. It started out as a pet job with pets that served different functions. Then after Leviathan and Ramuh-egi had been all but finalized, the devs gave up entirely on the pet system and tried to ride the hype of Dreadwyrm Trance.

Mind you that I'm not a SMN main, and I think it a sign of there being a problem when someone who has no stake in the design of SMN taking issue with where the job has been taken.

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And, oh, by the way, I'm already quite prepared to see the same flood of complaints if Stormblood's version of the RDM yet again turns out to be too different from the "traditional" template. Twelve forbid!

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Considering they seem to have ignored actual feedback on what could be done with RDM (read: "look at WoW's enhance shaman and ret paladin to get an idea of how to implement it"), yes, there's going to be words had after the expansion launches.

I cringe every time someone disagrees with how Summoner is handled when the only defense for it is "don't compare it with Summoner from XI" when many are comparing Summoner as a whole from the entire FF franchise.

People bitched about DRK because as a whole from a franchise standpoint it isn't a DRK in the traditional sense at all. And Samurai and Red Mage will likely follow suit. And there will be bitching about that too.

Last I recall Summoners were not known for DoTs but rather spells that called down magical beasts to render devastation down on their foes. With the occasional beast that boosted party members as well. When the boss summons Garuda in Xelphatol for an attack, that is an accurate depiction of how summoning should work. Not this chicken nugget efigy that only serves as a DoT and it's only use is as a DoT extender.

What we have here is a Super Arcanist that specializes in the Bio tree of spells. Black Magic spells mind you. A portion that rightfully belongs to the BLM that is unjustly given to a different class because reasons.

summoner needs to be nerf'd!!!!

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Let me introduce all such critics to a simple word: Innovation.

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Innovation is grand, so long as your innovative new car has wheels and goes on roads. When your innovative new car has wings and flies through the air, it's not really an innovative take on a car - it's something else. Not necessarily something worse, but it's still not a car.

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

I'm already quite prepared to see the same flood of complaints if Stormblood's version of the RDM yet again turns out to be too different from the "traditional" template.

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Based on what I've seen it's certainly going to be. I'm glad you're prepared, because if I'm still around then I'll likely have a lot to say on the matter!

I mean, I've just seen this new interview with the producer where he pretty much admits that he's not interested in maintaining the themes of long-standing Final Fantasy jobs. That's fine, if you want to do something new, but... don't call your aeroplane a car in the process?

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

What we have here is a Super Arcanist that specializes in the Bio tree of spells. Black Magic spells mind you. A portion that rightfully belongs to the BLM that is unjustly given to a different class because reasons.

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Arcanist Magic, otherwise known as Arcanima, is not Black Magic.

Black Magic is the use of destructive magicks made by using Environmental Aether to avoid the use of one's own Aether reserves.

Arcanima is the use of Mathematical Formulas and Geometric Symbols to create their spells. They accomplish this by using their Grimoires as a means of shaping and directing the Arcanima into the spells they use. On the topic of this, they create their Summons by temporarily splitting part of their Aether to create their Carbuncles and Egi's.

Here's some links that I used for this info.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2052557

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2150439

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3796893

Don't try to make an argument out of wrong info.

And besides, I'd rather not have SMN use full-size primals because that would make any 24-man with more than 2 of them a cluster fuck, and that's not even taking into consideration on how boring the class would be if a majority of your damage was done with a pet.

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Originally Posted by magnanimousCynic

junk

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XIV lore reasons are all well and good but every other FF game in the franchise has Bio specifically listed as Black Magic. Try again.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

XIV lore reasons are all well and good but every other FF game in the franchise has Bio specifically listed as Black Magic. Try again.

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Except lore reasons for something in this specific game are entirely valid. Series history has only ever been referential for further titles, such as numerous spells becoming Green Magic in XII. Nothing that was in one title has ever had to be exactly the same in another to be implemented. Square has done this numerous times in the past, including both XI and XIV as well as several of the single player entries. His argument is fine.

It would be cool that Ysayle ability to transform would be included as another method which could replace the pets and give it more focus on being a summoner that channels the powers of the primals into. They don't even need to give you full form they could give you something like embodiment of armor which would give you the abilities of the primal until your Magi(Mana) runs out. You can of course freely leave the form at any time so that you don't completely drain your mana but it be a good way of making some nice changes to the job itself.

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Originally Posted by Doluka

Except lore reasons for something in this specific game are entirely valid. Series history has only ever been referential for further titles, such as numerous spells becoming Green Magic in XII. Nothing that was in one title has ever had to be exactly the same in another to be implemented. Square has done this numerous times in the past, including both XI and XIV as well as several of the single player entries. His argument is fine.

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Bio is also considered a Black Magick in XII. Your point? I see little point in bringing up a magic type prominent in Ivalice games. 2 of them. The rest of the franchise has nothing to do with Green Magic.

Try again.

Bio being a Black Magic spell in past FF titles doesn't mean it has to be in XIV. It's arcanima, there's no disputing that if it has been confirmed in-game.

Anyways I don't understand the hate Summoner gets in this game. FF is all about innovation. Summoner was just a glorified BLM in the older (I-IX) titles anyways, and were usually outclassed by endgame when you're fighting superbosses.
I really like the direction SMN is going in too. Bahamut has always been the end all be all summon in FF, so I think it's cool that we can invoke him and use his signature abilities. I hope they expand on the DW Trance mechanic by adding more finishers and such.

and imo the most iconic Summoners in FF rarely relied on summons. Yuna was useful for her high magic stat and her white magic, while Rydia's black magic saw more use until you obtained Bahamut, (unless you're playing the remake, in which double casted flare or meteor beat out Bahamut)

Honestly, as far as comparing smn to older ff's is concerned, dreadwyrm trance and deathflare are much closer to what smn's were in the older games, and I hope they continue going in that direction rather than start making it more of a pet class

What would be cool is if they allowed Summoners to summon the Primal like Yuna did in FF Dissidia. They were only half the over all summoner (top half) but they were better then just the pet spirits.
That or let them become the Primal like that one girl in the story.

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Originally Posted by TheMax1087

Honestly, as far as comparing smn to older ff's is concerned, dreadwyrm trance and deathflare are much closer to what smn's were in the older games, and I hope they continue going in that direction rather than start making it more of a pet class

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Honestly I would agree with that...

If we are talking True FF Summoner...

Then the Dreadwyrm Trance and the massive damage you do with it is much closer to the actual Summoner than anything else.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Honestly I would agree with that...

If we are talking True FF Summoner...

Then the Dreadwyrm Trance and the massive damage you do with it is much closer to the actual Summoner than anything else.

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you forgot Teraflare it's even closer than Dreadwyrm Trance ; )

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Honestly I would agree with that...

If we are talking True FF Summoner...

Then the Dreadwyrm Trance and the massive damage you do with it is much closer to the actual Summoner than anything else.

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How is that a summoner? Summoners were meant for summoning avatars to do the dps for them. Getting Dreadwyrm Trance and Teraflare was just SE way to make summoner even less of one.

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Originally Posted by Venom1443

How is that a summoner? Summoners were meant for summoning avatars to do the dps for them. Getting Dreadwyrm Trance and Teraflare was just SE way to make summoner even less of one.

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Its actually pretty simple. Summoner summons summon, summon does 1 attack, summon goes away. That's how summoner worked in the majority of final fantasy games with dedicated summoners(and in all that didn't have dedicated summoners except 13)

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Originally Posted by Venom1443

How is that a summoner? Summoners were meant for summoning avatars to do the dps for them. Getting Dreadwyrm Trance and Teraflare was just SE way to make summoner even less of one.

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Only three games in the 14 other final fantasies have done this, that being X, XI, and XIII, and I wouldn't consider two of them as "traditional" final fantasy games. In all other final fantasies that have summons that appear for a few seconds (or minutes in some cases), and perform a single powerful attack. Look at the below video to see how long these "avatars that do DPS for us" used to stick around for (hint: Dreadwyrm trance lasts about the same amount of time).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HAthc_mFOs

What I will be happy to see though is a mirage of bahamut appearing when performing Deathflare, but thats probably beyond feasible.

I've been thinking about the expansion for summoner. At this point every ability to the summoner is useful so with them doing an ability review how do they add new abilities for the job without removing some of the current ones which will cause some adjustments to the job itself in how it plays. Right now its a mixed job with all these abilities all over the place in different area's with no real focus so how do they make it more focused so that they can continue to make the job grow. I honestly have no clue how they plan to approach the job but right now this job is probably the hardest for them to make new abilities without making some sort of drastic change in the way it plays and it probably have more focus I hope when they release new info on how the jobs will be effected. We just have to wait and see what they have planned for the job.

My entire problem is not that SMN is a poorly designed job---far from it, it's actually interesting.

My problem is that a job that relies on DoTs from your books from the Arcanist class, pets as additional DoTs and Bahamut's Deathflare as a direct attack doesn't have any business being called a Summoner. Maybe it should be a Blue Mage.

Meanwhile we have an Alexander minion that looks like a very realistic miniature of Alexander, people posing en masse on their (sometimes oversized) mounts in Idyllshire, and a dungeon boss that outright summons Garuda briefly for an attack. And the prevailing excuses are still lore and "the models are too big". I'm not buying that anymore, SE. You wrote yourself into a corner, and I would love to hear you squirm out of the hole you made for yourself.

I think the relic will be the last thing I ever do with it, outside RP'ing. All this is making me want to get a Black Mage and forget Summoner even existed with all the identity issues.

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Originally Posted by AscendantManes

I think the relic will be the last thing I ever do with it, outside RP'ing. All this is making me want to get a Black Mage and forget Summoner even existed with all the identity issues.

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Red Mage is coming out to so give that a try too :) I'm still deciding on what my main job will be for the expansion and will be focusing only on that job so that I get more out of the game and stop missing out on raid content.

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Originally Posted by AmalonStar

Personally there are a few jobs I've been disappointed with.

Smn is supposed to actually summon 'primals' not limited to 3 types, tank dps and caster dps. I miss my smn's from XI and loved the diversity of skills and abilities each different summon would bring. Smn is more of a dot Mage than anything here.

Drg- isn't a drg supposed to be a dragon master with command over dragons? Here they're simply dragon slayers. From the general lore I know of drg is that they pull their power from dragons and typically have a dragon companion.

Nin- basicly a combination of ninja and thief, it doesn't fully utilize the potential of both jobs.

Brd- basically a combination of a bard and a ranger, again this one doesn't utilize the potential of both jobs.

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I can agree that SMN is disappointing thematically, and that BRD is more Ranger than Bard.

But no, DRG was a dragon master once in ff11 and literally nowhere else since 1990. And NIN has everything NIN has had in every final fantasy, give or take an effect. It also has everything THF has ever had except the ability to steal buffs.

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Originally Posted by Vrmillion

But no, DRG was a dragon master once in ff11 and literally nowhere else since 1990.

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You mean that tiny Wyvern that was so weak the Recast Time had to be reduced from 2 hours to 20 minutes? FFXI was the origin of the LOLDRG meme.

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Originally Posted by Vrmillion

It [Ninja] also has everything THF has ever had except the ability to steal buffs.

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Stealing buffs would probably be extremely niche in this game, just like One Ilm Punch. Hell it would probably be cut in 4.0 if we did have it as a skill.

I'm not really bothered about summoning full sized Garuda.

What I want is to use this dreadwyrm aether that we collect to summon Bahamut-egi instead of 'Bahamut-hat'. I'm also not fussed about using his abilities directly, I'd rather command the mini-Bahamut I've bound to my will to use them, especially Teraflare.

(ok, I basically just want a mostly cosmetic reworking of Dreadwyrm trance and Deathflare.)

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Originally Posted by AscendantManes

a dungeon boss that outright summons Garuda briefly for an attack.

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That guy is a tempered thrall of Garuda. And he's only able to do that summoning because of the shitload of crystals present in Xelphatol.

The mistake in that whole mess was having the boss summon Garuda in the first place. Of course, alternatives are sparse, since you could have that boss summon Garuda-egi along with Chirada-egi and Suprana-egi. The problem there, though, is that the method player characters use for summoning is something that is derived from Allagan data, which means that beast tribes are not going to have the needed info to summon egi in the first place (along with the fact that storywise your SMN is one of a handful in the world that know how to summon egi). In short, it's a mess.

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And the prevailing excuses are still lore and "the models are too big". I'm not buying that anymore, SE. You wrote yourself into a corner, and I would love to hear you squirm out of the hole you made for yourself.

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Personally, I don't see any outs. They had their opportunity with Heavensward (since the SMN questline could have focused on strengthening egis while further developing the relationship between the SMN and their pets), but that was squandered with Dreadwyrm Trance, the systems that came with it, and the aether limitations excuse used for why you can't summon Ramuh/Leviathan/Shiva-egi.

As I mentioned before, SE also changed the rules behind primals because they were bent on going down the "let's disprove all faiths" path of storytelling, which did nothing to help (as I said, Sanic the Hegehog as a primal is entirely possible thanks to how they wrote that part of the HW story; and that's not a good thing).

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Originally Posted by Duelle

as I said, Sanic the Hegehog as a primal is entirely possible thanks to how they wrote that part of the HW story; and that's not a good thing.

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Sanic primal confirmed :o I want it

Well its a good thing most of you posting on this thread don't seem to represent the SMN community much...

Most everyone I know loves playing the SMN... in fact... there's so many of them they're about as popular as BLM... I did a Diadem the other day and we were packed with Summoners. In fact the Party leader said as much "wow... think we have enough Summoners"...

And I'm running into it more and more often.

This is a strong and powerful Job... I wonder if half the people on this thread have ever played it past level 50... Once you get past level 50 this thing really starts to play like a REAL final fantasy Summoner. With Tera Flare and the whole 9 yards...

Here's the Tera Flare Summon from FF7...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_rylb0G_wM

Here's our Tera Flare...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkq5frZhcSA

Yeah they don't zoom out to a planetary level... but they sure got Deathflare right...

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Once you get past level 50 this thing really starts to play like a REAL final fantasy Summoner. With Tera Flare and the whole 9 yards...

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Although im a smn in heart – I sadly i kinda disagree on this... your comparison didn't fit well for me : /

Deathflare is nothing to compare with the impact of the offline titles summons - it doesn't feel like the appearance of a mystical powerful being appearing on the battlefield which is iconic for summons. Although I like our true Terra Flare very much (meaning the LB3) - the only real "summon" in FF14 for me right now – it disappoints me that the given FF14 limit-mechanic won't allow us to use it the way we should use it... And even if you get the chance to "unleash the dragon" you have to step back for all the melees and their fatality-moves... meh .____.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

This is a strong and powerful Job... I wonder if half the people on this thread have ever played it past level 50... Once you get past level 50 this thing really starts to play like a REAL final fantasy Summoner. With Tera Flare and the whole 9 yards...

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Summoner is a fun class, it's great to play and it feels powerful.
I've argued in the many Summoner threads that it only really needs cosmetic changes and minor tweaks to really get the Summoner feeling.

Past Summoners basically summoned things that did a big attack and then went away, we've got the big attack now but we don't summon anything to do it, we do it ourselves instead. Fun, but not really "summoning".