6.0 Summoner: Thoughts on an Unsuccessful Rework After 1 Month of Gameplay

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Originally Posted by Sequora

I keep reading all of these posts about how rigid the rotation is. Did any of you even play the old summoner? The only extra thing you had to pay attention to was the DoT timer. Otherwise it was a very strict rotation.

Red mage is a proc caster. Every cast has a chance to activate another spell. The rotation itself is pretty set. I think people are forgetting how simplistic 4.0 red mage was. It was a very well designed simple job that has gotten really solid QoL changes.

Black mage too, has a fairly set rotation. Black mage has a couple of systems that make things complicated. Procs being one.

I think 6.0 summoner is a fairly strong base, that would have been great in 2.0 or 3.0. That being said, if we are indeed paying the range tax, I wouldn’t mind losing some of it for damage. Either that or they take away rez. I wouldn’t mind being slightly under blm, without rez

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I'm not sure you played very much SMN, the rotation was very flexible outside of your Demi summons, of which Bahamut was only somewhat flexible.

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Originally Posted by Xiaoki

It's unreasonable to think that everything will stay the same after 10 years.

Well, at this point you can evaluate your options.

Play a different Job
Quit the game
Or (and the most likely course of action) keep playing Summoner but complain endlessly about the "good ol' days"

Hey, maybe the developers will revert the changes if you whine enough. I hear that works sometimes, just ask the HW Dark Knight people.

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What is the point of this post? SE devs don't care, so don't bother voicing an opinion?

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Originally Posted by SargeTheSeagull

I’m convinced that you either are a troll or genuinely have no clue what you’re talking about.

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I mean I think there’s been a very vocal minority being unhappy with summoner changes. You would never think that being logged into the game. I see summoners in almost every group. On NA servers at least it seems at least as popular as red mage, if not maybe more so.

The problem with forums, is that they don't realise they are a vocal minority. The VAST majority are loving life in the game with the new summoner, and half of them don't even know this place exists anyway.
Square has the numbers, and unless them numbers are below ninjas, nothing will change much, if at all with the current summoner, no matter how loud the forum cry.

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Originally Posted by tearagion

I'm not sure you played very much SMN, the rotation was very flexible outside of your Demi summons, of which Bahamut was only somewhat flexible.



What is the point of this post? SE devs don't care, so don't bother voicing an opinion?

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Are you trying to tell me that there wasn’t an optimal rotation? Because there was, and it was way more rigid than black mage and red mage. Pre 6.0 Summoner was a priority job. Do you have your dots up? Do you have egi assaults to use?

Can you be more specific with flexibility? Or maybe give your definition of flexibility? I remember quite a bit of ruin spamming with lots of oGCD weaving.

Is 6.0 summoner perfect? Absolutely not. I think it’s a step in the right direction.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

Are you trying to tell me that there wasn’t an optimal rotation? Because there was, and it was way more rigid than black mage and red mage. Pre 6.0 Summoner was a priority job. Do you have your dots up? Do you have egi assaults to use?

Can you be more specific with flexibility? Or maybe give your definition of flexibility? I remember quite a bit of ruin spamming with lots of oGCD weaving.

Is 6.0 summoner perfect? Absolutely not. I think it’s a step in the right direction.

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It was flexible because, as you say, it was a priority system and those priorities didn't dominate every GCD between burst phases. As long as you entered Bahamut with 4 Ruin IVs and, didn't drop your DoTs, didn't drift CDs like Egi-Assault and Energy Drain, you were 90% of the way there. The skills not important to your burst could be fairly freely shuffled around to optimize a specific fight's movement and windows.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

On NA servers at least it seems at least as popular as red mage, if not maybe more so.

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“Lots of people play it so it’s fine” It’s basically a new job, of course people are playing it. Lots of people played red mage and samurai when 4.0 dropped. Lots of people played DRK, Astro and MCH when HW came out. Doesn’t mean it’s good. Doesn’t mean it’s well designed. It means people want to try it out. I mean people played a bunch of monk in 5.0 thanks to GL4. We all know how that turned out. Give it six months and nobody will touch summoner in anything harder than a dungeon.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

I mean I think there’s been a very vocal minority being unhappy with summoner changes. You would never think that being logged into the game. I see summoners in almost every group. On NA servers at least it seems at least as popular as red mage, if not maybe more so.

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People seem to like saying this to undervalue negative opinions with the rework, but have nothing to justify their claims. This is pretty much hear-say.

Like, we can't even factually say if the job is being played all that much other than the clear rates for it on Savage.

And if SMN does end up having a lot of players in statistics, it's most likely because people are trying out a completely reworked job. Doesn't necessarily mean most people like it though. Someone said this before, but just because jobs like White Mage get a lot of players doesn't mean it's not full of problems.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Old SMN was clunky and annoying - ✓
Usual buzzwords for "I'm not good at this" and/or "This personally doesn't click with me, so it's clunky".

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False. “Clunky” here doesn’t mean that someone didn’t like playing as the job or wasn’t good at it; it’s referring to multiple things that have been listed in past posts.

For one, weaving wasn’t as smooth as it could be, which is helped now by cast times being lower for some spells. A second thing was Bahamut annoyingly having to follow you around before he casted attacks that you requested he perform; asking him to attack could often not happen if it was done with only a few seconds left in his timer. That’s improved with the newer job design where he stops following you around constantly. But the biggest thing to me was that the egi actions in Shadowbringers often had an inconsistent delay, whether it came to attacks or Devotion; you would have to sometimes hold off on starting one of the demi-summons in case you risk one of your pet attacks not fully executing and thus being wasted, when they shouldn’t have had that sometimes awkwardly queued delay to begin with. And this wasn’t an occasional problem; it happened frequently and was irritating.

Dismissing legitimate criticism of the older job design as other players simply being bad is rude, uncalled for, and is less likely to have your own criticisms be taken seriously by Square Enix; they’ll probably be more likely to ignore criticism that involves harassment.

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Originally Posted by tearagion

What is the point of this post? SE devs don't care, so don't bother voicing an opinion?

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Old Summoner is never coming back. No matter how much you whine and complain about how "brain dead" new Summoner is, it's gone.

It's in the trash bin forever right next to Monk positionals and old Dark Knight.

But, hey, keep voicing your opinion if you want. However, all that time and effort will be wasted because, as you said, the SE devs don't care.

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Originally Posted by SargeTheSeagull

“Lots of people play it so it’s fine” It’s basically a new job, of course people are playing it. Lots of people played red mage and samurai when 4.0 dropped. Lots of people played DRK, Astro and MCH when HW came out. Doesn’t mean it’s good. Doesn’t mean it’s well designed. It means people want to try it out. I mean people played a bunch of monk in 5.0 thanks to GL4. We all know how that turned out. Give it six months and nobody will touch summoner in anything harder than a dungeon.

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Except you SEVERELY underestimate the casual joe. He doesn't care about complexity, he just wants to finish his raids and trials and cruise through content in easy mode while looking at nice animations and getting the summoner feel aesthetically. These players are MANY, and will most likely stick with the job. You bring up monk, but for most players, pre 5.4 monk was very hard for a LOT of players, so naturally they would bow out after a while, summoner is NOT of that ilk.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

Can you be more specific with flexibility? Or maybe give your definition of flexibility? I remember quite a bit of ruin spamming with lots of oGCD weaving.

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In 4.x you can delay using Bahamut as long as Aetherflow was still under cooldown, you can also end Dreadwyrm Trance prematurely if needed and it won't affect your DPS. It gives you a lot of flexibility for downtimes during fights or if you want to use it during raid buff windows.

This wasn't possible anymore in 5.x and now because of the removal of old Aetherflow, which made the job so rigid in design. Now you have to blow your CDs when they're immediately available or it's a DPS loss.

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Originally Posted by SargeTheSeagull

“Lots of people play it so it’s fine” It’s basically a new job, of course people are playing it. Lots of people played red mage and samurai when 4.0 dropped. Lots of people played DRK, Astro and MCH when HW came out. Doesn’t mean it’s good. Doesn’t mean it’s well designed. It means people want to try it out. I mean people played a bunch of monk in 5.0 thanks to GL4. We all know how that turned out. Give it six months and nobody will touch summoner in anything harder than a dungeon.

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As of the latest census it is factually correct to say that on NA and EU SMN is the most popular caster. As one may guess, the only thing to beat it on JP is Red Mage. During this time in Shadowbringers I had decided that SMN in raids and extremes was absolutely not going to happen for me. It was the occasional dungeon for tomes until I got a different class to 80, after which I abandoned the job and wasn't planning on looking back until the rework took me by surprise.

So far on my main I've been having a blast being able to do harder fights while not having to deal with a mess of buttons and systems. Though I'm not opposed to some reasonable additions this job design has yet to exhaust me the way old SMN did in a matter of a few weeks. Straightforward and to the point. I do not see myself doing the latest msq/extremes as anything as other than this job now. Possibly the next savage too if they provide rewards I'm actually interested in, unlike this tier.

Time will tell what kind of job design really drives more people away over time.

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Originally Posted by MellowMink

False. “Clunky” here doesn’t mean that someone didn’t like playing as the job or wasn’t good at it; it’s referring to multiple things that have been listed in past posts.

For one, weaving wasn’t as smooth as it could be, which is helped now by cast times being lower for some spells. A second thing was Bahamut annoyingly having to follow you around before he casted attacks that you requested he perform; asking him to attack could often not happen if it was done with only a few seconds left in his timer. That’s improved with the newer job design where he stops following you around constantly. But the biggest thing to me was that the egi actions in Shadowbringers often had an inconsistent delay, whether it came to attacks or Devotion; you would have to sometimes hold off on starting one of the demi-summons in case you risk one of your pet attacks not fully executing and thus being wasted, when they shouldn’t have had that sometimes awkwardly queued delay to begin with. And this wasn’t an occasional problem; it happened frequently and was irritating.

Dismissing legitimate criticism of the older job design as other players simply being bad is rude, uncalled for, and is less likely to have your own criticisms be taken seriously by Square Enix; they’ll probably be more likely to ignore criticism that involves harassment.

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Weaving is the same then as it is now, it's just that 90% of your casts now are instant.

Bahamut would sort of stutterstep his attacks as of ShB, him standing still is a huge boost to consistency between encounters though and I understand why this would be seen as an improvement. I, however, enjoyed trying to minimize movement just like for BLM. Wyrmwaves no longer being triggered by spells, however, I do not think is an improvement.

The Egis would have their abilities delayed by either other abilities, movement, or retargeting. Two of these were largely non-factors and all of these could be worked around quite easily. This isn't a particularly valid point of contention though as the pet abilities are still delayed for the same reasons, all they've done is cull the total number of them.

So if a part of the reason for the rework was to remove these issues, then they kind of half failed. That aside they could have fixed them completely and it would not a good rework make. The rework can be considered a failure for any of the other reasons discussed in this thread.

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Originally Posted by MellowMink

False. “Clunky” here doesn’t mean that someone didn’t like playing as the job or wasn’t good at it; it’s referring to multiple things that have been listed in past posts.

For one, weaving wasn’t as smooth as it could be, which is helped now by cast times being lower for some spells. A second thing was Bahamut annoyingly having to follow you around before he casted attacks that you requested he perform; asking him to attack could often not happen if it was done with only a few seconds left in his timer. That’s improved with the newer job design where he stops following you around constantly. But the biggest thing to me was that the egi actions in Shadowbringers often had an inconsistent delay, whether it came to attacks or Devotion; you would have to sometimes hold off on starting one of the demi-summons in case you risk one of your pet attacks not fully executing and thus being wasted, when they shouldn’t have had that sometimes awkwardly queued delay to begin with. And this wasn’t an occasional problem; it happened frequently and was irritating.

Dismissing legitimate criticism of the older job design as other players simply being bad is rude, uncalled for, and is less likely to have your own criticisms be taken seriously by Square Enix; they’ll probably be more likely to ignore criticism that involves harassment.

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Improve your reading comprehension. What was considered clunky in old SMN wasn't fixed in new SMN, it was just moved elsewhere. Unless we want to act as if Ifrit-Egi, Titan-Egi and Carbuncle are completely devoid of issues, of course. Hence, another reason as to why the SMN rework can be considered unsuccessful.

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Originally Posted by Navnav

Except you SEVERELY underestimate the casual joe. He doesn't care about complexity, he just wants to finish his raids and trials and cruise through content in easy mode while looking at nice animations and getting the summoner feel aesthetically. These players are MANY, and will most likely stick with the job. You bring up monk, but for most players, pre 5.4 monk was very hard for a LOT of players, so naturally they would bow out after a while, summoner is NOT of that ilk.

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I'm a casual joe. I play the game only for several hours a week these days and the only difficult content I bother doing is Extremes but not all the time. My opinions should matter then, right?

Even I think 6.0 SMN could be more complex than it is right now. Casual content is already easy enough you can sleep while doing it that letting a job like this have an extremely low skill ceiling shouldn't be okay.

Like... It would be okay if SMN was easy to pick up but takes effort to master, but right now it's just easy on both things. That's boring.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Improve your reading comprehension. What was considered clunky in old SMN wasn't fixed in new SMN, it was just moved elsewhere. Unless we want to act as if Ifrit-Egi, Titan-Egi and Carbuncle are completely devoid of issues, of course. Hence, another reason as to why the SMN rework can be considered unsuccessful.

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I mean the issues with ifrit egi and titan egi are pretty easy fixes and are only an issue while leveling.

I will agree that carbuncle is clunky. I kind of wish they would give him a really weak pre6.0 wyrmwave style attack where he would just use an attack. That way they could take radiant aegis and searing light away from him and just make them summoner abilities.

That to me would fix all or most of the summoner jank

in savage (or even extreme trials), i enjoy playing Smn (also simple but enough fun trying to optimise a fight with the summon & cast order(

Smn has imo only 3 issues only:

1) dps obviously (way) to low for such low utility dps job (should be on par wirh Mnk)..
maybe cut the Searing Wind CD in half? (if that even helps), or just potency adjustments aka buffs

2) wierd CD system for Searing Wind & Radiant Aegis.. just so ffing wierd & clunky, when both CD reseted, but can't use either till a certain time laps after summoning the prinals (or not at all during semi-primals)

3) rez is a "weak" Smn utility, .. Smn now has MP issues late into fights (like savage), either straight up can not rez cause MP is too low, or just barely enough, .. 1st (or 2nd) rez can only happen after lucid kicks in

(dunno how its with other jobs and rezing, but rezing is a weaker utility than it used to be for Smn ,.. and coming back to the 1st problem, Smn still has the lowest dps, aside of "real utility" aka physical jobs, and needs a buff)

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Originally Posted by Xiaoki

It's Ok when it's not my job.

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They'll come for you too one day. Just wait

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Originally Posted by Sequora

I mean the issues with ifrit egi and titan egi are pretty easy fixes and are only an issue while leveling.

I will agree that carbuncle is clunky. I kind of wish they would give him a really weak pre6.0 wyrmwave style attack where he would just use an attack. That way they could take radiant aegis and searing light away from him and just make them summoner abilities.

That to me would fix all or most of the summoner jank

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"Only an issue while leveling", but that's 89 levels out of 90, almost the entire game's content. Whether they are easy fixes or not, it doesn't change that the issues exist. You could avoid a lot of old SMN's issues by playing the job correctly, but this doesn't change that those issues still existed.

It's not just about jank and clunkiness, either. People were expecting the rework to actually make Aetherflow an interesting and integral mechanic to SMN's kit for example, yet the devs managed to make it even worse. There are many, many things that show how the rework is a failure. They managed to give SMN an unified and coherent identity, but they missed the mark with pretty much everything else.

Well, the rework boils down to make Bahamut standalone and replacing the phase where we used DoTs, Pet Action to gather Further Ruin stacks, and Ruin casts to maintain the DPS with the 3 summons.
It feels like they only thought how each set of Summon skills should behave, completely independent of each other, adjusted timers to fit the old window and loosely implemented them like that.

It would make sense to have to use the lesser summons first to be able to achieve the greater ones (our still bursts Bahamut/Phoenix) like, instead of expending gems to summon you gain them as you do the summons and can only use Baha/Phoenix when the 3 are filled. But the rework does it backwards.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

1. Continuing to insult and belittle people's abilities when it comes to old SMN isn't helping its case much. In any case while those egis are somewhat annoying to use, I don't have much of a problem as long as I'm using them in melee range. These issues then disappear with the level 90 upgrade. So far I have not experienced ghosting with Carbuncle or the demis since launch but if that is the case for some then I hope those issues are resolved.

2. Views vary as to what made old Summoner complex, for me it was due to the fact that I felt like I was fighting more against my keyboard and the systems than the actual boss in front of me, combined with the bugs and glitches that were far more prominent and widespread then compared to now.

3. You can make a macro to play just about any job, in any case no jobs should not have huge barriers to entry like Summoner used to have. "Complex!" gameplay lovers don't get to have entire jobs to themselves, if you want complex gameplay and challenges then Savage and Ultimate are right there.

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SMN Was not that complex lmao, all you have to do was precast ruin 3, burn all your Egis, use the raidbuff, do DWT and go into bahamut, after u recast ur dots and save a R4. like that's not complex at all and I wish people who didn't even play the class that much would stop gaslighting players into thinking this job was some gigabrain caster, it was easy as heck, Only hard part comes from opti but that's like every job

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Originally Posted by Madoka

They'll come for you too one day. Just wait

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Meh, I'll just switch to a different Job. Again.

You see, in FF14 you aren't beholden to just one.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

When they announced the rework the most common sentiment everywhere from SMN mains and now-interested players was "thank god this class is finally a Summoner now and good riddance to its old systems."

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There's been about 100 pages scattered across multiple threads refuting this exact point. I've even explained the technical details of why to some casual people in game and they have no problem understanding the argument once they do some quick testing.

There's three test cases available to you right now that explain the issue:
- Swap to Scholar and just press the various pet buttons (Fey Union/Blessing/Illumination, Whispering Dawn, Summon Seraph/Consolation) between Broil IV spam, then Ruin II spam on a dummy.
- Swap back to Summoner and after using Bahamut, Summon an Avatar and mash Radiant Shield until you're able to use it, Counting how long it takes. Along the way, make a mental note when the Avatar appears, when it does damage, and when it leaves. Radiant Shield will be available when Carby reappears.
- Contrast the rough numbers of the dummy situations above with the same tests in an actual encounter (Doing your normal rotation on Stone Sky Sea will do), or by comparing them to a hardcast raise (which every Summoner who is even remotely interested in these cases should be familiar with doing in an encounter) on a friend.

A lot of the issues with the new rotation immediately get explained once you see that the Resummon mechanic itself forced it into this situation. And those are three obvious test cases that anyone in this thread can figure out just from playing the Endwalker Arcanist jobs naturally and paying attention if they feel something is off. It doesn't even take an imagination to see what could have been with the context of Scholar alone. However, the other two examples are necessary to explain how we got this rotation. People can easily understand the Resummon mechanic has to go once they see it's holding the job back, because it factually is. Not necessarily the rework, the Resummon mechanic. Because then there might be room for more complexity that actually makes the Summons and Carby feel impactful and like they're a core part of the rotation. That's the Summoner we're all looking for.


I have made the argument that the Resummon mechanic is core to a lot of issues with the new rotation, but it all stems from actually testing out those use cases in isolation and in practice to actually see it. I'm sure some people have already intuited those problems given the Searing Light ghosting issue somehow still exists for them. It doesn't for me and I'm at 200 ping, but I also liked Shadowbringers Summoner's response time and I agree it was objectively worse, so, eh. Somewhere the devs got the rework wrong (I presume as a knee jerk reaction to FesterRuin in ShB's launch), but whatever they did to pet AI in the interim is more right than it ever has been. And I want them to know that because it should be celebrated. What makes me in particular angry is knowing they could have planned around that.

Which is another reason they need more staff. Straight up. Get more people into their design, AI, and QA teams and they'd have the breathing room to make stuff like this work consistently.

Gameplay is infinitely better than pre-rework. Therefore, rework is successful. Whether it does enough damage is another question unrelated to gameplay rework.

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Originally Posted by Yuella

Gameplay is infinitely better than pre-rework. Therefore, rework is successful. Whether it does enough damage is another question unrelated to gameplay rework.

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I agree with damage being unrelated to gameplay, that's just a matter of number tweaking. But saying the gameplay is infinitely better now so the rework is successful, is using your own opinion to conclude than the rework is a success.

Old SMN was far from perfect. New SMN is also far from perfect. We still have to deal with pet actions that either ghost or are unavailable because Carby must disappear half the time for whatever reason.

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Originally Posted by Yuella

Gameplay is infinitely better than pre-rework. Therefore, rework is successful. Whether it does enough damage is another question unrelated to gameplay rework.

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Gameplay is complete dogshit pre 86. Press your summon button, press damage button 6 times, press another button, spam damage button 2-4 times (repeat that step 3 times), repeat. Mix in Energy Drain/Syphon and glowy combo buttons in there once a minute.
Post 86 gameplay is not much better, but it's a slight improvement.

Precisely!
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1-57 : ruin mage with carby>egi summons that nets you more powerful/instant ruins, weaving Festers/Painflare. About half your Ruins are instant (8 total from Garuda n titan, 8-10 from ifrit and Aethercharge)

58-69(nice) : you get DWT, Bahamut Ruins in DWT, and other ruins stay ruin. Approx 80%? of your spells are instants (pending on how many normal ruins you cast plus Ifirits Ruins) with Deathflare to weave in with Festers/Painflare.

70-79 : Same as 60-69, but now you get Bahamut summoned, Enkindle Bahamut to weave. FINALLY ruins become Elemental; note after lvl 70 (74 pending on what you count), we learn no new abilities other than trait upgrades till 86, respectfully. no Phoenix trance while leveling

80-85 : Same as 70-79, tri-diaster is elemental, and we have phoenix, plays similar to Baha but with rekindle instead of deathflare.

86-90 : Add egi astral flows; outside of that is still the same stuff we press with one more button to press during Egi. Only for 4 levels of content, as more 90 content is released will be less of an issue

~
I played ShB Summoner and a touch of SB summoner. I miss and don't miss old SMN,
~

What should have been done is that:
we get the egi upgrades periodically through low levels(30-45), we Get the full primal upgrades periodically as well between 80-86. 86 is the last full primal summon.
Move the astral flow upgrades to the 60-70 bracket(63 66 and 69), we barely get any upgrades or traits there, allowing more additions to our rotations at a lower but reasonable spot and making our ruins upgrade to their elemental forms with said unlocks.
Give us back Phoenix Trance at lvl 72,
as for capstone, give us a nice summon ability or something, (open to ideas on this)
~~~

There is a lack of build-up, especially past 70. 1-69 we slowly gain the ability to summon egis, get DWT before summoning Bahamut, we build up to that point over time. 70-80 our ruins get aug, then we summon phoenix. 80-90 our aoe gets Aug, we gain astral flow, we can summon all 3 primal forms, there's no build-up really.

~~

We have room to weave but only 3-5 things(6 in titan after 86) to weave
(1ED 2AF and 2 demi abilities, and Titans)
Ruin IV feels weird, it has its uses, movement or Burst windows,
I'd remove ED/Siphon, add their potency to Fester/Painflare, and make them shared CDs with 2 stacks, Yes I know it removes one weave spell. or like others have said, reduce ED CD so we can weave more often. even if it's a trait later on.

~

please let searing light be used out of combat like aetherpack.

~~

That's my take,
I would not call this remake a failure, I stay true to my book and summons out of love for the job and pure primal spite. And while I like it, it can still use some tune-ups or something added/rearranged.
I am grateful for the time the devs put in. And I know SMN while Great, can and will be even better as time goes on, I mean, it's only 6.05, what can happen?

To reiterate again, SMN's "old systems" and most issues were never addressed with this rework.

-Aetherflow is still disconnected from SMN's entire kit. A problem with 5.x SMN when they changed it to how it is now, from being your main resource to progress your rotation in 4.x and earlier.
-Pet ghosting is still a thing and frustrations from delays still happen. It's removed from Bahamut and Phoenix by making them auto-attack, and the RGY summons being flashy animations instead, but Searing Light and Radiant Aegis from Carbuncle can ghost, and if you're below level 90, your RGY summons can still ghost their enkindle if they can't reach the target fast enough. But back to Searing Light, not only is it possible to ghost, it's unusable when you use your other summons which is roughly 98% of the time.
-Lack of flexibility. This is an issue with 5.x SMN after they reworked Aetherflow. Now I believe it's even less flexible because there is just zero downtime to delay on using your summons, or else it's a DPS loss.
-Ruin Spam is still a thing. Believe it or not, The Rites and Catastrophes are still Ruin/Outburst in a different coat of paint (it's especially apparent in lower levels and the trait upgrading them being called Ruin Mastery), along with Bahamut and Phoenix's themed spells. Not that this is an issue to me ever personally, but this was a very common complaint with SMN back then.
-Phoenix's utility is largely unreliable, especially when they added Rekindle.
-Physick is still useless and kept around for absolutely no reason.
-Lack of new summons. This has been a complaint since the very beginning. We did get Bahamut and Phoenix over the years, but I'm sure most of us wanted to see Leviathan, Ramuh and Shiva for the longest time.
-Egi glamours were forgotten, especially now where you can't glamour your summons at 90.

I'm sure there's more but this is all I can think of at the moment.

EDIT:
What they "fixed":
-The theme and fantasy of the job. Not a technical thing, but a lot of us can agree that we appreciate this the most out of the rework.
-DoTs being gone. Believe it or not, they started removing DoT-themed abilities in favor of Summoning-themed abilities starting 4.x but now it's completely gone.
-Egi Assault being replaced with the new RGY summon system. Reason why is because instead of these spells being casted by your summon, it's casted by yourself. So no ghosting.

New issues:
-Acquiring Phoenix is a DPS loss because it has no damage-dealing Astral Flow.
-Garuda apparently becomes a DPS loss at a certain level. (Not at 90)

SMN has a solid foundation. Looking forward to how they'll improve it. Love how it plays.

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Originally Posted by dinnertime

To reiterate again, SMN's "old systems" and most issues were never addressed with this rework.

-Aetherflow is still disconnected from SMN's entire kit. A problem with 5.x SMN when they changed it to how it is now, from being your main resource to progress your rotation in 4.x and earlier.
-Pet ghosting is still a thing and frustrations from delays still happen. It's removed from Bahamut and Phoenix by making them auto-attack, and the RGY summons being flashy animations instead, but Searing Light and Radiant Aegis from Carbuncle can ghost, and if you're below level 90, your RGY summons can still ghost their enkindle if they can't reach the target fast enough. But back to Searing Light, not only is it possible to ghost, it's unusable when you use your other summons which is roughly 98% of the time.
-Lack of flexibility. This is an issue with 5.x SMN after they reworked Aetherflow. Now I believe it's even less flexible because there is just zero downtime to delay on using your summons, or else it's a DPS loss.
-Ruin Spam is still a thing. Believe it or not, The Rites and Catastrophes are still Ruin/Outburst in a different coat of paint (it's especially apparent in lower levels and the trait upgrading them being called Ruin Mastery), along with Bahamut and Phoenix's themed spells. Not that this is an issue to me ever personally, but this was a very common complaint with SMN back then.
-Phoenix's utility is largely unreliable, especially when they added Rekindle.
-Physick is still useless and kept around for absolutely no reason.
-Lack of new summons. This has been a complaint since the very beginning. We did get Bahamut and Phoenix over the years, but I'm sure most of us wanted to see Leviathan, Ramuh and Shiva for the longest time.
-Egi glamours were forgotten, especially now where you can't glamour your summons at 90.

I'm sure there's more but this is all I can think of at the moment.

EDIT:
What they "fixed":
-The theme and fantasy of the job. Not a technical thing, but a lot of us can agree that we appreciate this the most out of the rework.
-DoTs being gone. Believe it or not, they started removing DoT-themed abilities in favor of Summoning-themed abilities starting 4.x but now it's completely gone.
-Egi Assault being replaced with the new RGY summon system. Reason why is because instead of these spells being casted by your summon, it's casted by yourself. So no ghosting.

New issues:
-Acquiring Phoenix is a DPS loss because it has no damage-dealing Astral Flow.
-Garuda apparently becomes a DPS loss at a certain level. (Not at 90)

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since Fountain of Fire buffs Phoenix isn't a damage loss anymore at 6 casts. Everything else is completely accurate though.

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Originally Posted by tearagion

since Fountain of Fire buffs Phoenix isn't a damage loss anymore at 6 casts. Everything else is completely accurate though.

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Oh yeah, I forgot they buffed Phoenix. They should've buffed the rest of the job though with how weak it is right now.

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Originally Posted by Xiaoki

Meh, I'll just switch to a different Job. Again.

You see, in FF14 you aren't beholden to just one.

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Yeah, but if you don't like any of the other jobs and they remove the job you do like then hey, there's no jobs you like anymore. I played SMN because it was the most engaging job in the game to me since ARR and continued to be so through ShB. Now it's just as boring as the rest.
Keep in mind I liked 1.0 archer because of Quick knock and stacking damage boosting cross class abilities to obliterate things in one attack with 3 arrows readied because it was an interesting way to play, vs the normal method.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Navnav

The problem with forums, is that they don't realise they are a vocal minority. The VAST majority are loving life in the game with the new summoner

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No we are not.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

SMN has a solid foundation. Looking forward to how they'll improve it. Love how it plays.

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Yea... but it's also a level 90 job, not 50. We are long long past setting foundations. The jobs they have revamped (DRK, SMN, MCH) have many players feeling that it is incomplete; missing what it had and not having what it needs. Then what if 7.0 ends the leveling experience @ 99?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Yea... but it's also a level 90 job, not 50. We are long long past setting foundations. The jobs they have revamped (DRK, SMN, MCH) have many players feeling that it is incomplete; missing what it had and not having what it needs. Then what if 7.0 ends the leveling experience @ 99?

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Also, has a "solid foundation" job ever actually turned out to be just the foundation for something incredible? Somehow they seem to end up even more stripped down or getting a string of indecisive reworks lacking identity.

I don't know if Mr. Yoshida or any of the Devs reading this, but I feel that as a SMN main who starts doing savage raids, and since Devs planning to update jobs at 6.08 I need to voice my feedback/opinion



The Good thing

1. Lvl 90 summon primal II visual, where summoner finally manifested real primals



The Bad thing

1. The most glaring issue is that Job is dead boring before 90, that I now refuse to bring them to roulettes except the lvl 90 ones, luckily I started EW Summoner at 80, so I dont have to endure such pain
- L < 60 is basically spamming ruin, with boring fx
- 60 - 69 also basically spamming ruin with a bit fx /elemental re-skin, but still boring
- 70-89 the job becomes mildly decent with Bahamut, and phoenix

2. Lackluster FX for spells compared to likes of Red Mage and Reaper, especially they use the same but re-coloured sigil for elemental casting

3. Horrible DPS; I mean everything was good until you reach Savage Raids, where people starts to judge your class and Ilvl gear , that Some PF leaders starts to inquire whenever I have Red Mage instead SMN for DPS Support. With higher Dps, double cast revive, ver-cure, mobility, Red Mage does everything better.

4. Ifrit (and maybe Garuda) is a liability, high price but yields low dps, no tactical buffs; we summon it because there is nothing better to do while waiting for Bahamut



What can they improve (I wont address FX/Visual issue since I knew its subjective)

1. Making Carbuncle / Egi Glamour of your choice auto attack (ranged)

2. Instead of buffing raw potency, add more skills / OGCD skills, since the buttons kinda empty here

3. Adding more summon, although I understand this is a pricey option, which they unlikely to implement

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xiiijra

[...]

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I can't really agree with that :
1. There's not a lot of things that change at lvl 90 (visual clutter aside). Like I can play SMN at lvl 50 and it feels exactly the same as lvl 90, just without the Astral flow skills and the flashy fx.

2. Lackluster fx pre-lvl 90, at 90 it's too much. Can we have an in-between ?

3. DPS is slightly below RDM. I wouldn't say no to a little bump-up, but we're nowhere "horrible DPS". Vercure isn't going to save anyone 95% of the time, whereas a rekindle on the tank costs nothings and help a bit the healers to manage the boss' auto attacks. How can RDM be more mobile than SMN, when SMN has like 4 hard casts per minute ?

I keep seeing people asking for more summons. How would that help when they couldn't even balance the 3 we have now ?


My wishlist for SMN would be like:
1. Make Carby always on field. Summoning a primal / demi-summon no longer eats Carbuncle, so we can always use Searing Light / Aegis

2. Reduce Ruby Rite and Slipstream cast and recast time to 2.5s

3. Buff all Ifrit abilities so the "hardest" phase is rewarded with better DPS

4. Do something interesting with Energy Drain and Fester

I think comparing Vercure to the Phoenix heal doesn't work as you have Phoenix only every two minutes. I've been in countless situations where it did absolutely nothing as everybody was in full health, where as you can use Vercure whenever you want and you can keep a tank or yourself long enough to chain raise the healers and they handle the rest. Just do Vercure > Verraise > Vercure > Verraise > Vercure and so on. It's more useful than what SMN has on every level.

In my personal opinion, SMN should do more damage, however I don't want to get that "for free". I want more buttons to press and more cast times to earn myself that. As many people have said before, SMN right now is a good foundation, but we're at level 90. There should be at least some kind of complexity involved that makes the job engaging and rewarding when playing.

I still play SMN because I can't let go but it really doesn't satisfy me. Not even my summons make me proud as they're nothing but aesthetics and deep down I can't overlook that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Yea... but it's also a level 90 job, not 50. We are long long past setting foundations. The jobs they have revamped (DRK, SMN, MCH) have many players feeling that it is incomplete; missing what it had and not having what it needs. Then what if 7.0 ends the leveling experience @ 99?

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MCH still has 2 gauges that only uses 1 button for each gauge. GNB has 3 buttons that uses ammos in comparison.
DRK has still not use for Darkside. It lasts 60 seconds and every 60 seconds you're supposed to dump your MP in Edge of Darkness. Darkside is a trait, you don't have to care at all about darkside, even if it was a hidden timer and no tooltip in the game would tell you about it, you would still maitain it 100% of the time.
Both living shadow and automaton queen are press and forget. You could add billions of traits and new attacks, they would remain "press and forget". And the worst part is that the more they are expanded upon, the clunkier they will become. Automaton Queen already suffers from its second finisher.

Not only those "foundation jobs" have the depth of a puddle, but some of their mechanics are already in needs of QoLs.
I really would like to see the designer explaining to me why the second finisher on the Queen was a good idea but that's another topic.

SMN will only get 1 or 2 new buttons and one of them has a high chance of being a utility button.
They simply can't add a new lego, that would push bahamut/phoenix out of party buffs.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

Both living shadow and automaton queen are press and forget. You could add billions of traits and new attacks, they would remain "press and forget"..

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The sad thing is how easy it is to make them something we'd care about. Automaton Queen already has half the equation, flexible timing. Both, though, need interaction.

Imagine, for instance, if Living Shadow worked more like Dancing Rune Weapon, duplicating your attacks at 25% effect (including Blood and MP generation), or even a whopping 50% after reducing your damage first by 25% (still a 12% net damage increase atop the 50% increased resource gen).

Similarly, imagine if MCH actually had a mechanic again, such as a (streamlined) return to its proc chances as to make its 'combo' actually worth having separate buttons for. (No, I don't count as "mechanics" gauge-spenders without interaction, ceaseless 1-2-3 cycles, or hitting CDs as they come up.)

For instance, what if it got back both Rook and Bishop, both now nicely mobile, as spenders (or returned to AAs that can be burst for subsequent downtime), each with further options, such as Wildfire from Bishop (coating the target and those nearby in aetherized accelerant) and Tracer Fire from Rook, with respective ramp-up or capitalization mechanics. If Automaton Queen remains in the mix, as some form of later-unlocked variant, give it moments of opportunity, such as Clean Shot having a doubled crit bonus and Crowned Collider being an active cast and briefly guaranteeing a crit on your next shot (or shots within a given, brief duration) against the target struck.