[Pole] Do you want to see the summoner class reworked?

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Do Bards have to buy arrows in order to attack no because it would be a nightmare to run out of arrows mid fight whole other Jobs can still go. The only difference between the Chemist in FFT and the Summoner in this game is the Summoner doesn't have to purchase poisons to use the poisoning skill line while the Chemist has to purchase poisons to use the poisoning skill line. Essentially the Summoner and Chemist play the same apart from having a permanent pet.

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There is no connection between Summoner from FFXIV and Chemist FFT, you keep reaching that hard and you are going to throw your back out.

You know, on a more "practical" note, I'm kind of worried about the future of this Job.

Yoshi-P has already said, they will be adding more Egis. I'm not really sure how this is going to turn out. With just 3 Egis, Titan is situational (mostly for soloing FATEs) and Ifrit ... haven't used him in ages. What the heck is Levi/Ramah/Shiv Egi going to do? Sit unused?

Although I suppose one possibility is the Levi/Ramah/Shiv Egis being full upgraded replacements of our current 3 ... Levi = tank, Shiva = range DPS, Ramah = useless.

On a side note, do we really need so many DoTs? They all kind of do the same thing. The Job is pretty much "whack the mole" with DoT timers.

PS: I'm kind of worried about the whole Job/Class system to be honest. I don't see it as being particular extendable without creating a mess of balance.

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Originally Posted by Bishop81

Although I suppose one possibility is the Levi/Ramah/Shiv Egis being full upgraded replacements of our current 3 ... Levi = tank, Shiva = range DPS, Ramah = useless.
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If they dared to do with the new Egis what they did with the carbuncles (i.e. just reskin the egis and increase their potency by 10), I would be very, very upset.

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Originally Posted by Bishop81

You know, on a more "practical" note, I'm kind of worried about the future of this Job.
[snip]
What the heck is Levi/Ramah/Shiv Egi going to do? Sit unused?

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This is why I think they need to step back and think about what purpose the Egi are supposed to serve. I'm not saying they need to redo the job from scratch, or take away our dots. I just want to be assured that every Egi will have utility that makes them worth using.

The problem with the Summoner is it focuses entirely on Dots instead of focusing on summoning. We have very little to no interaction with the Pet it's just out there as another DoT. The Egis should be elemental avatar with 8 abilities unique to their element. Summoner should have the ability to Summon Primals and manipulate the essence of the Primals.

The problem with the current Class/Job system is that all the class abilities go into the jobs which work fine for pure Jobs like Black Mage or White Mage but not for hybrid Jobs like Summoner or to a lesser extent Bard and Paladin.

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Originally Posted by Bishop81

With FFXIV's SMN, DoTs are a huge part of the class when there is really no reason for it to be so. The summons on the other hand, you know the main feature of the class, are a tad pathetic ... They don't look impressive. Their damage is less than a PC's.

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DoTs/`\Pets If you give to one thing you must take away from another otherwise you ruin the balance. I agree SMN pet ability are mostly fluff and I find fairy abilities to be much more in depth when playing SCH. Stuns and Push backs are only good in PvP. In fact most SMN Pets could be left on auto if not for silly abilities like that.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

The problem with the current Class/Job system is that all the class abilities go into the jobs which work fine for pure Jobs like Black Mage or White Mage but not for hybrid Jobs like Summoner or to a lesser extent Bard and Paladin.

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Works fine to me. I can easy play both SMN and SCH without skipping a beat. Maybe I'm a true Arcanist.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

The problem with the Summoner is it focuses entirely on Dots instead of focusing on summoning. We have very little to no interaction with the Pet it's just out there as another DoT. The Egis should be elemental avatar with 8 abilities unique to their element. Summoner should have the ability to Summon Primals and manipulate the essence of the Primals.

The problem with the current Class/Job system is that all the class abilities go into the jobs which work fine for pure Jobs like Black Mage or White Mage but not for hybrid Jobs like Summoner or to a lesser extent Bard and Paladin.

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How does the current system not work for Bard and Paladin, even to a lesser extent? Are you just trying to sling mud on the current system hoping it'll get redone, and in the process Summoner gets a rework?

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Originally Posted by Spellbinder

If they dared to do with the new Egis what they did with the carbuncles (i.e. just reskin the egis and increase their potency by 10), I would be very, very upset.



This is why I think they need to step back and think about what purpose the Egi are supposed to serve. I'm not saying they need to redo the job from scratch, or take away our dots. I just want to be assured that every Egi will have utility that makes them worth using.

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I think part of the problem is Emerald/Topaz Carbuncle (Guarda/Titan) pretty much covers all the use cases for pets.

Their attempt at adding a 3rd one has been less than successful.

Even if they do succeed it could mean either displacing one of the other 2 or it will be so niche as to be rarely used - there simply aren't enough commonly encountered "niches" to go around.

I suppose the best that can be hoped for is that they balance all the pets - something they have to date been less than successful at.

If they want to add new pets, they'll have to sort out the existing ones (mainly Ifrit)

Radiant Shield vs. Contagion
- Contagion alone beats the crap out of his Radiant shield - it should have been a buff to the summoner that empowers the dots placed on the target instead (bane-able) to be on par with that skill.

Flaming Crush vs. Aerial Slash
- While crush is stronger, the range is ridiculously small and most of the time, misses entirely, Aerial Slash hits way more reliable and it's also instant... Crush should have doubled range to offset the awkward placing you have to do with Ifrit

Crimson Cyclone vs. Shockwave
- Stun is already an overused debuff, is an wasted pet attack slot with only 2s duration. Shockwave is an unique "debuff" that only WHM has otherwise. Instead of stun, he should have placed an physical def down debuff instead.

so in order to balance out the newer pets, they'd need:

1 normal single target attack

Leviathan: ranged magic potency aoe attack (60 potency)
Ramuh: weaker attack that damages the target surrounding targets by halved damage (80 potency main target, 40 to the surroundings)
Shiva: melee potency attack (120 potency)

1 aoe attack

Leviathan: ranged placeable aoe attack (140 potency)
Ramuh: lightning chains, travels through all targets, gets interrupted if targets are too far away (80 potency)
Shiva: miasma II ranged aoe around the summoner (130 potency)

1 DoT utility attack

Leviathan: spreads dots to 4 nearby targets, basically a bane (1min cd)
Ramuh: places a buff to the smn, all dot ticks during that time can shock the target temporarily, potentially interrupting their casts, 10sec (1min cd)
Shiva: Deals damage depending on dots placed, basically a fester (1min cd)

1 crowd control/debuff attack

Leviathan: placable aoe, temporarily places fear on everyone that steps inside it (1min 30sec cd)
Ramuh: Damage, paralyzes the target (30sec cd)
Shiva: Damage, temporarily freezes the target (50sec cd)

Also to encourage switching midfight, they need to get a free instant summoning spell 1min cd or longer. That would make the Smn a lot more dynamic and less raw power based like BLM.
Tri-Disaster also alters depending on the summoned pet but we've suggested that one way too often...

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Originally Posted by Bishop81

Well, renaming it won't help players who want to play a more "SMN-y" SMN.

As for "got really boring or it got way too strong", try this out for size,

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2598684

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When I said rename I meant rename the current SMN to something else (Chemist or whatever) and create and entirely new class altogether that fits more what some people are wanting from a job with the name SMN. I don't know if that's how I came across. Not saying that's what they should do or even would do I'm just saying do that makes way more sense to me than taking the class that already works really well and just completely destroying that and making it new. That's what re-work means to me. Not saying that's what's being discussed that's just the visual I get.

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Originally Posted by Clarkamite

When I said rename I meant rename the current SMN to something else (Chemist or whatever) and create and entirely new class altogether that fits more what some people are wanting from a job with the name SMN. I don't know if that's how I came across. Not saying that's what they should do or even would do I'm just saying do that makes way more sense to me than taking the class that already works really well and just completely destroying that and making it new. That's what re-work means to me. Not saying that's what's being discussed that's just the visual I get.

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Well, the way I read it was "just rename the exist currently-known-as-SMN Job". :p

But to be frank, that would have problems of it's own. What are they going to do with the Egis? They would also have to completely rewrite the Job quests.

Oh my God, yes.

I want the DoTs to change depending on which summon is out, or something.

When I think of how Summoner should work (in my mind at least), I feel like it should be seen less like a pet class (that'd be Ranger or Beastmaster) and more like a mage with a stance system. You'd have a basic array of spells, some general buffs to your summon, but your main skills would be more specific commands that grant more situational buffs and abilities (for example a command that has it target enemies that attack a specific ally). Of course, there's the complaint that that puts too much focus on the summon and not the summoner and that the summoner would be useless without the summon. My initial reaction is "Duh, that's like complaining that archers are useless without their bows," but after that I can under stand where their coming from.

So here would be my solution:

1. Split Arcanist into two classes. The DoT-focused Arcanist and the pet-focused Evoker.
2. Evokers take Carbuncle while Arcanist can use Faeries from the start.
3. Carbuncle is always out and Evokers gain the Jewel off-hand equipment, which is equipped to the Carbuncle and alters its stats, skills and role.

As for Summoner, instead of getting Summon III, Fester and Tri-Disaster, I would have their quests unlock the spells Summon Fire, Summon Earth and Summon Wind (And add Summon Water and Summon Lightning in the Expansion). Which would either call forth an Egi that fights alongside you and your Carbuncle, or transforms your Carbuncle into an Egi and when the Egi is defeated it changes back into Carbuncle.

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Originally Posted by Shikiseki

If they want to add new pets, they'll have to sort out the existing ones (mainly Ifrit)

Radiant Shield vs. Contagion
- Contagion alone beats the crap out of his Radiant shield - it should have been a buff to the summoner that empowers the dots placed on the target instead (bane-able) to be on par with that skill.

Flaming Crush vs. Aerial Slash
- While crush is stronger, the range is ridiculously small and most of the time, misses entirely, Aerial Slash hits way more reliable and it's also instant... Crush should have doubled range to offset the awkward placing you have to do with Ifrit

Crimson Cyclone vs. Shockwave
- Stun is already an overused debuff, is an wasted pet attack slot with only 2s duration. Shockwave is an unique "debuff" that only WHM has otherwise. Instead of stun, he should have placed an physical def down debuff instead.

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This guy knows how to fix ifrit — Give him all the money!

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Originally Posted by Bishop81

Well, the way I read it was "just rename the exist currently-known-as-SMN Job". :p

But to be frank, that would have problems of it's own. What are they going to do with the Egis? They would also have to completely rewrite the Job quests.

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Yeah I know. I meant to write that in my initial post saying that I don't know how they would make that work with lore, but I forgot. My main point is the class works and it works well. What if they went ahead and changed it and gave everyone what they want from SMN but for whatever reason is made completely useless/not viable/etc. in actual raid or even dungeon scenarios? Then they will have destroyed a class that works just to create one that doesn't.

What if it was too useful? What if it trivialized everything? I doubt that would happen and that is certainly me taking it to an extreme but I'm just saying in my experience with summoning it's really really hard to get it right. How do you balance something that's supposed to feel really strong? If you're not completely face rolling everything with a summon then it doesn't feel like a summon. And if the summon is literally just one strong attack ever so often I don't feel that's all that useful either.

For me, learning to play Summoner on XIV was one of the most disappointing gaming experiences of my life - for all the reasons in this thread. It feels completely wrong.

People are drawing comparisons between XI's Summoner and XIV's Summoner, and how one is worse than the other for reasons, etc etc, but fundamentally they are both flawed and brilliant at the same time. XI's Summoner wins in concept but fails in execution - I play XI Summoner, and I love it, but it's awful. XIV's Summoner fails in concept but wins in execution - I play XIV Summoner too, and it's wrong and weird, but effective. The solution isn't to pit one against the other, but to take the best of both.

Arcanist is an awful base for Summoner but it's a great class in general. Making Summoner better depends on completely detaching it from the Arcanist roots. Either change what Arcanist summons into the elemental sprites we see in the overworld, or remove summoning entirely and replace those class skills with DoT-focused ones like native Fester and Contagion. Branch off SCH as a DoT/CC focused DD job and Arcanist is golden.

This obviously leaves Summoner bereft of a base class, so it needs a new one. We need to branch a DD and a healer from this new hypothetical base class to replace the Arcanist!Summoner and Healer!SCH, so instead of leaving our promotion jobs with useless skills or completely redesigning them when the job stone is attached, the base class needs to have abilities that focus entirely on supporting and enhancing the pet that's summoned. If we tie the fundamental class/job abilities to the summons rather than the class, the job stones can just grant access to different summons and there's nothing redundant left over. SE tried this but it obviously failed horribly - they didn't take it far enough.

Lore-wise, our hypothetical base class can summon "aetheric creatures" like Carbuncle, as well as classic lower-tier summons from previous FF that aren't Primal material but already exist in XIV - Fenrir is a perfect example. The pet abilities that are so lacklustre (for the most part) in Arcanist!Summoner become the bread and butter in the new class - replacing Bio, Physick and the like. Keep the auto-attacks, but make the pet abilities much more impressive, and force them to be user-controlled. Now all the visible stuff comes from the pet, controlled by the player, and augmented by the class abilities.

For the class itself to use, there is vast potential for "role-neutral" abilities - MP management, pet potency bonuses, pet restoring or defence bonuses, player/pet buff sharing, pet ability timer reduction abilities, "surge" area of effect abilities that vary with the summoned pet, mob debuffs that increase damage taken from pets or distribute drained HP, and so on. Carbuncle as the first summon grants hybrid-style effects and low-tier healing, and Fenrir (or whatever) focuses more on damage dealing. An ability that reduces pet damage taken and increases enmity replaces the role of Topaz Carbuncle. It all fits together into a pet-focused class rather than a DoT-focused one. At this stage the class can still mechanically fit into Arcanist's DD focused role, given access to a DD pet, but it has infinitely more potential.

Toss on a Summoner job crystal and the lore changes. The Allagans transmuted stolen Primal essence, but we don't have to. in XI, Summoners taught the Primals what it was like to be mortal by showing them through their summoning, and that works even better in XIV's lore - something immediately relevant to the storyline. This is a fantastic opportunity to explore Primal lore outside the main quests - they have different personalities, aims, goals. Quests to acquire pacts with Primals would really expose the differences in their natures - Garuda and Titan, for example, are very different. They don't have to look like awful elementals any more, either.

From a mechanical perspective, if the majority of the job's defining features are on the summoned pet itself then there's a lot more potential to make them different. Sidequests to unlock Garuda and Titan can make them available at level 1, leaving Summoner's moveset open for more pet-support abilities focused on increasing offensive potential. Carbuncle and Fenrir are still there for soloing and questing flexiblitiy/hybridisation/cosmetic purposes.

Drop in an Evoker job crystal for the healer job. No messing around with Primals, but retaining the focus on "aetheric creatures" that represent the lower-tier summons from classic FF history. Siren, Sylph, Madeen, etc etc etc. are all fair game here, and because the base class had myriad abilities for supporting summoned pets, all of them apply equally well to healing-focused summons. A job crystal tweak to enhance Carbuncle's healing potential puts him back in the mix - and we can give each summon a different place on the "pure healing >> hybrid >> buffing" spectrum to make them all valuable in different scenarios. SE likes each job/class to have some soloing and questing potential, so Fenrir remains invaluable as the counterpart for SCH's solo DD ability using DoTs. And, of course, Evoker's healing speciality will remain with mitigation, in equal parts from job abilities and pet abilities, making it an appropriate replacement for the existing SCH.

Our final result is a more traitional and interesting Summoner, with better focus on summoned creatures, and a working branch into two job roles from one base class stemming from role-neutral class abilities. The DoT-style play sticks around for people who enjoy the undeniably effective functionality of our current Arcanist/Summoner in the new Arcanist/SCH. Everyone is happy, angels descend from the heavens, world hunger is solved, and that thing where you get that annoying itch in that unscratchable part of your back never happens again. Sorted.

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

Arcanist is an awful base for Summoner but it's a great class in general. Making Summoner better depends on completely detaching it from the Arcanist roots.

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They should have branch SMN off THM (they are both "dangerous" arts) and SCH off CNJ (they heal, duh).

How ACN that is all about tactics and strategy suddenly become about "playing with fire" summoning dangerous aspects of Primals, I will never know.

In all honesty I think THM would be even less suitable. THM would bind us to an Astral/Umbral cycle, which is completely unrelated to summoning or pets, and having THM's tools available would either necessitate really weak or infrequent summoning or huge changes built into to the job crystal - at which point using THM as a base is made rather pointless.

The class from which Summoners promote has to be built from the ground up for a summoning focus or the gameplay is never going to make sense; Without the class/job synergy it's like trying to promote a ranged damage dealer from a melee damage dealer - the class focus is far too fundamental for it to work properly.

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

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Well, with proper reworking of Classes/Jobs such that Classes only have the bare minimum skills and shift all the Job specific things into Jobs, it could work.

Maybe they should just drop the Classes and leave just Jobs - maybe turn the more popular Classes into Jobs as well.

Having a "common base" hasn't really worked out. The only Class that serves as a base for more than 1 Job is ACN and even then SCH has next to nothing to do with ACN gameplay-wise - almost all your ACN abilities are effectively secondary abilities.

The Summoner should split from the Arcanist become a Pure Summoner using Summoning Magic and revolving around the Summon. The Arcanist into Summoner doesn't make sense because poisoning a summoning have no synergy. The common base works for other jobs because classes are low level version of their jobs. The common base class for the Summoner is the Evoker which is the low level version of the Summoner.

YES FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE

Yes

I would love to see the job base on the pets more than dots. I feel like I do not control my pets much since I have to keep all the dots up, not mentioning we only use Garuda in most fights. A revamp to bring out the true power of a SMN would be nice.

For me at least, it would change a lot if they would just simply change the animations into flashy summoning with basically the same effects.
I mean they could replace carbuncle with our egis, can't be this difficult right?

Battle effects/potency remain unchanged (exceptions are labeled)
Ruin --> Ruin (I think it's alright)
Bio --> Meteor Strike (Ifrit quickly appears and launches a fireball towards the enemy)
Physic --> Geysier (Leviathan splashes the target with a water fountain to heal)
Energy Drain --> Rolling Thunder (Ramuh tethers the foe, draining their lifeforce)
Miasma --> Friction (Garuda casts her quick friction wind blast)
Virus --> Millennial Decay (Calls Fenrir to cause the debuff)
Resurrection --> Phoenix (Instead of angel feathers, a phoenix aura will shortly appear above the dead member to revive)
Bio II --> Geocrush (Titan jumps right into the enemy from above)
Bane --> Ruinous Omen (Diabolos works his magic to spread the dots around the target)
Eye for an Eye --> Ruby Light (Carbuncle returns! Now casting a protective buff on a party member "eye for an eye")
Ruin II --> Ruinra (not sure if the instant cast justifies its high mp cost without having a small aoe effect...)
Rouse --> Rouse (seems fine)
Miasma II --> Heavenly Strike (Shiva casts an ice tomb when she's being summoned around the caster which shatters quickly)
Shadow Flare --> Memento Moogle (Summons multiple dancing moogles at a specific place with swirling notes)

Summon I --> Garuda (Faint green aura of Garuda - half sized of the original but same model with 50% transparency)
Summon II --> Titan (see Garuda but with yellow Titan aura)
Summon III --> Ifrit (see Garuda but with red Ifrit aura)

Fester --> Tri-Disaster (makes sense no? If all 3 dots are applied, it deals nice damage)
Tri-Disaster --> Silent Voice (Summons Siren to do minor damage + 1 random status ailment like silence/stun/pacification/sleep etc.) <-- only attack that has altered battle effects!
Spur --> Spur (seems alright)
Enkindle --> Enkindle (Signature attack)

Since it looks like every new dungeon has a minor summon at the moment, the Summoner will only have its visuals altered by clearing that content first.
That would give the Summoner so much more a summony feel, just by altering their spell animations without touching the beloved balance

Personally, I would not want a more pet-focused SMN mainly for the reason that controlling pets is one of the more annoying aspects of SMN right now.

Yes

Summoner should be more about the pet. As an end game Summoner who has downed T13, I still want a proper Summoner.

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Originally Posted by Kikosho

Personally, I would not want a more pet-focused SMN mainly for the reason that controlling pets is one of the more annoying aspects of SMN right now.

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At least it's interactive, and I'd say we need more interaction with the pet. Spamming Ruin after DOTs are applied is the single most boring thing in FFXIV combat.

In terms of gameplay SE would do good to reduce manacost and casttime of pet summoning for SMN.
It would allow them to bind different Player skills to get boosted or even become available only if the correct pet is assisting you.

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Originally Posted by Spoekes

In terms of gameplay SE would do good to reduce manacost and casttime of pet summoning for SMN.
It would allow them to bind different Player skills to get boosted or even become available only if the correct pet is assisting you.

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Of course any changes to reduce mana cost / increase mana regen will affect SCH too.

Sharing a base class makes changes to either Job difficult.

For this reason, I wonder if an ACN/SMN/SCH rework is in the pipeline.

Yup. Best not hope for anything before the expansion.

Maybe you will finally get your carbuncles then :-P

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Originally Posted by Bishop81

Of course any changes to reduce mana cost / increase mana regen will affect SCH too.

Sharing a base class makes changes to either Job difficult.

For this reason, I wonder if an ACN/SMN/SCH rework is in the pipeline.

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ez band-aid solution: give more piety bonus to the summoner job stone.

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Originally Posted by Uninstall

ez band-aid solution: give more piety bonus to the summoner job stone.

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I definitely support this idea. WHM, BLM, and SCH have 30 piety more than SMN, which I don't get. This would help fix SMN's MP problems, but I still think they need to put down the MP cost of DoTs just a little bit. This will do until they rework SMN in the expansion I guess.

yes please.

one more focused on the summons doing 75%/90% of the damage. i enjoy it for what it is, but... it isn't a summoner... i get the point of its lore, and the egis. but it could have been a lot better then a dot class.

and make it so all of them are viable. titan is fine as a tank summon. but id like the option to use whichever egi i want and not be forced to one cause its got that one super ability.

TOTALLY YES

I hope dev reduce the CD for Enkindle skill to 120s instead of 300s. 300s is too long for skill that not give a higher damage or the CD still 300s but raise the skill potency to 500+ since its do higher damage. Then please cancel casting time to Bio 2 and Miasma 1 since that the only main dps skill that SMN has and it can distinguish the SMN from BLM in term of gameplay utilities since BLM is already have higher dps & good AOE skill. Besides, dev can remove the raise and psyhick skill since its mostly useless in raid/dungeon coz SMN have no time to use it because SMN usually tend to DPS rather than do healing/raise thing like SCH/WHM do. This 2 slot can be replace by damage buff/skill for SMN.

I also like the idea, that summoning pet will get permanent party buff like summon garuda will get 5% increase int & spell speed/skill speed etc. I also like the rework idea that, if summoning pet like garuda, SMN will get access to wind type spell and this elemental spell can replace with raise and physick spell. Last but not least, I really hope dev will rework the appearances of the egi's. At least create a true primal appearances in size of the player/minion and not the crystallize one. This will make SMN look like a true Final Fantasy summoner.

The Summoner is based around necromancy that's why people say it is simply a Summoner in name only and not a true Summoner. The Summoner should be based around summoning magic focus on summons and have synergy with the Pets. Summoner's can use Black and White Magic but that should be it's sub job.