(Un)Official Arcanist/Summmoner Feedback Thread

I'd rather have summons go back to pre-10 use.

Like, a spell.

But let me skip animations.

And make them do real damage compared to other avenues.

So the first time I could go, "Wow, that's cool!"

And then skip it the rest of the time.

Then have one that's very long compared to the rest, like Eden, so I can go grab a drink or something.


I liked most of the FF10 designs, but the functionality of the summons was nowhere. They were always just a meat shield, sometimes. Most of them were disappointing in actual play, too, until they used signature attacks.

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Originally Posted by T0rin

It is the least summony summoner to date

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Considering that in like 99% of Final Fantasies summons simply popped out, did one move, and vanished, making them nothing more then a glorified spell with a 5 minute cutscene, the current Summoner in FFXIV I'd argue is more like a summoner.

Conceptually it's one of the best Summoners to date since they give you the ability to control it if you want. The only other ones you could really do this in were X (which replaced your party), XII (which replaced your party), and XIII (which replaced your party). So, no they aren't on the level of X's, XII's, or XIII's summons, but kicking your group out of the current fight just so you can use a big bad summon doesn't exactly work, and it would be kind of hard for SE to create a summoner with that level of summony in an MMO.

Really, people complain about 2 primary things. Either Aesthetics or the proportion of damage between the summoner and the summon. The first one the FFXIV team probably just decided that they didn't want 1000 GARUDA, LADY OF THE VORTEX, flying across the city. In most Final Fantasies summons were unique and in FFXIV they wanted to keep them unique as well, and unfortunately this is an MMO and you aren't a special snowflake. Sorry if your summoner specifically can't be the only one to summon a full primal (until FC summoning later).

Second, for your summon to do more damage then it currently does they would have to seriously nerf arcanist's current damage while the summon is out, and all that essentially does is makes arcanist the afk job since you can go grab a coke while your summon does all the work (wouldn't be surprised if you ask the summon to grab you that coke). That or people were expecting a ton of special treatment like getting to ride your Garuda around XIII style which isn't happening either.

Seriously, most of the complaints haven't actually been fully thought through if their vision of what summoner is of whether it's even possible in an MMO setting or whether it's even fun. I mean look at what the summoner itself is doing in most final fantasies. Essentially just sitting there doing nothing while their summon is out. That's not fun in an MMO setting. I mean with all the limitations they have to keep in mind I think they have done a good job so far. That isn't to say there couldn't be improvements or that there won't be improvements, but summoner as it currently stands is fine imo. People are just complaining that they can't have the impossible.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

You don't get to decide that. If it wasn't Summoner, they would not have named it as such. What even defines a summoner to you, anyways?.

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A Summoner to me is a Job that is focused on Summoning, and performs through the beings they Call upon.

Here is the description of the job in XIV.


"In times immemorial, there lived mages who had not only the power to summon the primals, but also the means to transmute the primals' essences, thus binding them to their will. Known simply as summoners, the existence of these men and women and their arcane art have been all but lost to the ages.”


now that description tells me that the job is pet focused like all FF Summoners , but its a DoT focused job.

One thing SE can do is just animate spells differently when on SMN by having a summoned beast actually apply the spell and it practically becomes exactly as SMN from FFIII-FFIX. Hellfire/Diamond Dust/etc were all just prettier Firagas, Blizzagas, etc. to begin with.

Either way, I like the SMN play style though it very much reminds me of what the original 1.0 THM used to be like (Fester is essentially Shadowsear with dots being tied to it's damage as opposed to low HP).

This thread went from theorycrafting to "I want pretty colors" real fast

I think if they had just stuck with the look/feel of summoner from XI people would be a lot happier.

Now it would not be hard to change the current XIV summoner into something resembling this. We already have a good start because we have a way to do damage in our DoTs. They could change the awful Egi design and give us something decent to summon, but the summon would cost MP to keep out. The pet bar could be kept the same but change the 4 attack abilities to maybe 2 attacks and 2 buffs that are on a separate cooldown from each other. They cost a lot MP to use and have a 1 minute recast timer a la XI. SMN can choose between Fester (for more damage), or Energy Drain (To keep MP up)

Now SMN will have access to some burst damage (Egi 1 minute attacks), and some buffs for party. We will be much more MP intensive if we want to do more damage and we have ways to cut our damage to help regain MP (swap fester for energy drain, or skip some DoTs). This would really expand the summoner class to a couple different play styles, you still have rotations to enjoy doing, and I think it would give a much more "summony summoner" feel.

This SMN could be very awesome and interactive if SE would just put some effort into it.

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Originally Posted by RandolphDupree

This SMN could be very awesome and interactive if SE would just put some effort into it.

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They already put effort into it, and currently SMN is a high skill-cap job that has a lot things going for it.

What you guys are asking for is a dumbed down job/class that is completely dependent on summons. Basically the gameplay will go something like this: use summon CD - Button 1 - Button 1 - Button 1- Button 1 - Button 1 - Button 1 (and so it goes) - use summon CD - Button 1 - Button 1 - Button 1 (you get the picture).

Summoner currently is a well-designed job, and needs no bigger changes done to it. You're already capable of summoning a pet, that's already well within the defintion of a summoner.

If you don't like it; don't play it. No amount of forum posts is going to change anything. Deal with it.

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Originally Posted by Imoye

Snip.

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I'm guessing you thought i wanted SMN to have no abilities and only use his summon. That's not what I saying. (excuse me if that's not what you thought)
I'm not offering a dumbed down version. We would still have all our DoTs and abilities. As far as our summon goes we CURRENTLY only press one button, and that's if you use garuda, otherwise it's like that turkey cooker infomercial "You set it and forget it".
With what I am proposing at least now you are forced to interact with your summon and we would have some buffs to help the party as well. People will not have summon out all the time in battle because they will cost MP to have out.
Considering there was not much time to test SMN before game releases I think these discussions may actually lead to a change.

at least the limit break, make it so the summons have effect in our LB
maybe when garuda out, the LB will be wind AOE
when ifrit out, massive plum aoe
titan out, landslide, landslide everywhereeeee

thats will be more fun :D