Smn Rework Suggestions After LL

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Originally Posted by Roda

I'm not sure about the summons/trance being ogcds would be a good thing. With the loss of egi assaults, ruin II (lol), DoT hardcast timings, and a decent supply of ruin IVs, we've lost a good amount of ogcds outside of our semi/demi phases, and that could cause cast timing issues in between our phases. But that's just a gut feeling. I'd have to actually have some finger feelings to be sure about it.

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Honestly, the only reason I even dared bring up that idea was because of the change done to Ruin 3, which seems to have a 1.5 second cast time. Because of that, it should be possible to weave in 1 ogcd.

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Originally Posted by CasterSvarog

Honestly, the only reason I even dared bring up that idea was because of the change done to Ruin 3, which seems to have a 1.5 second cast time. Because of that, it should be possible to weave in 1 ogcd.

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Yeah that might allow for enough wiggle room, but I'm also just thinking about how wonky server connections might be and how short .5s is. ;x


Also correction to my post "a good amount of Instant cast gcds" instead of "ogcds"

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Originally Posted by Roda

Yeah that might allow for enough wiggle room, but I'm also just thinking about how wonky server connections might be and how short .5s is. ;x


Also correction to my post "a good amount of Instant cast gcds" instead of "ogcds"

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It would, that's how AST works. The gcd is 2.5s, 1s is plenty to weave an ability. And a 1.5s cast for a primary filler spell is excellent for mobility, not that SMN ever had a problem there.

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Originally Posted by Tulzscha

It would, that's how AST works. The gcd is 2.5s, 1s is plenty to weave an ability. And a 1.5s cast for a primary filler spell is excellent for mobility, not that SMN ever had a problem there.

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Yes 1 second is enough to weave, but maybe not those 3 mega animated spells you know ?

Lots of people seem to be happy about the summoner changes - but dunno I feel its just because it got even more flashier. But for what I see the problem seems to even get worse.

Since years we complained the clunkyness of this class and now we get a Summoner that goes through 6 different phases for one rotation? carbuncle, bahamut, garuda, ifrtit, titan, phoenix and then again? How long will our opener be? 2 minutes 20 seconds? How is that no more clunky?

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Originally Posted by Talec

Lots of people seem to be happy about the summoner changes - but dunno I feel its just because it got even more flashier. But for what I see the problem seems to even get worse.

Since years we complained the clunkyness of this class and now we get a Summoner that goes through 6 different phases for one rotation? carbuncle, bahamut, garuda, ifrtit, titan, phoenix and then again? How long will our opener be? 2 minutes 20 seconds? How is that no more clunky?

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It'll be 2 minutes rotation, same as always.
ifrit, titan, and garuda only last for a set amount of gcds that are designed to take up the 45 seconds in between your demi summons.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

If you do not consider 6.0’s summoner a real summoner then there is really nothing left to say.

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Yes every job is a string of animations, but it´s still a difference how it´s been made. From MNK i expect to be a fast hitting melee only class. SAM should be that hardhitting finisher class. Black magic is a symbol for destruction and so is BLM. White magic on the other hand has always been like something "positive" and of course it´s WHM is a healer. WAR is diverse, i would call someone with an axe a berserk, but since it´s a tank and not a burst-dps, being WAR seems fine.

I could go on with the list, but anyway i can´t see the current nor the new SMN as a real summoner. Yes you summon things, but next to carbuncle, bahamut and pheonix in their strict rotation, you just summon animations as you did in other FF games with Esper, GF, primal crystals. All of them don´t have coop or combo skills and there are not even real commands you can use. You don´t really interact with them, you don´t even have a carbuncle as mount, no you need to buy it in the shop.

Imagine you would be a real summoner, maybe someone who can have like 2 of 4 egis at once, maybe 2 finisher egis on top. (Just brainstorming)

- Let´s take Ifrit as core-egi, which gives you some fire commands. If your second egi is Garuda, Dot-skills getting expanded in their time, while aoe skills has a bigger range.
- Or if you´ve Shiva as second egi, you can combine fire and ice skills to set a water debuff on the enemy. The boss will get 10% more damage from lightning effects then, so of course Ramuh is a 3rd Egi you can summon for 10s, while the other 2 will be permanent.
- You could even combine Ifrit and Leviathan to create some fog-clouds and all players in there are getting buffed in evasion or maybe get a higher critical hit chance. Maybe NIN could use this fog to perform trickattack without mudra / his own stealth? Would be a nice class combo.
- At last Titan could be the other 10s Egi. Let him spawn 4 stones, where the group or a tank could take cover behind at several damage incomes. Maybe even Ifrit would be able to melt them, so they leave a hart hitting lava-aoe similar to Dotun.

Then you could take Shiva as prime-egi, which grants you more ice abilities and CC and you combine it the same or other ways with the rest. Garuda which grants more movement speed, more range, a windwall... Levi which could cleanse yourself or others, man so many possibilities...

You would interact with your egis, combine their elements and even in the raidparty it would spice things up. Being able to spawn stones or clouds the raid can interact with is much more than "press a button to shield or buff the whole raid in range". It´s interactive gameplay.
Sadly it would probably to complex for the most ppl and such stuff will surely never be implemented, but this is something i would call a summoner and not just a string of animations. Call me a dreamer, but 6.0 SMN is wasted effort for me and a pure lack of creativity.

And again, i would still vote for skilltrees too. It´s not hard to balance them. Give summoner an egi skilltree and a dot skilltree. Give MNK a positional-heavy tree and a blitz depended tree. Give Tanks the possibility to tank or to DPS, same with healers. Man there are so many ways to cater pretty much everyone on any class with stuff like a skilltree instead of static homogenized subclasses with roleskills. All those dumb discussions could end so easily with more possibilities on our side.

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Originally Posted by Garnix

Or maybe it somehow matches together because a lot of thought was put into it?...

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If i look at the story and lore, then no... neither if we look at older games and not even if we take FF14´s own lore / story. It matches together yes, but deeper thoughts are not really placed or easy "solutions" got placed. Just some examples:

- The Nanamo got poisened storyline... like yeah...
- Different races / classes... Why i´m able to become a dragoon without visiting ishgard? Why is GNB a tankclass, when Squall was a DPS-monster with sick limit breaks? Since when was Cloud a DRK? (Greatsword?)
Of course, we´re warrior of lights and can do everything easily. But we haven´t been able to switch classes easily in solo games, on the other hand we were able to be much more than "just that one class" per fight. (Casting, fighting, summoning, healing...)
Or Viera got introduced in the first splitterworld only, why does 1000 players run around as Viera here? Or Hrothgar which came suddenly out of nowhere? Raktika is the perfect Viera lore, but everything which affects us players, is none. As next we´re going to get male-viera caused by the community wish. It´s just a thing, because this is a MMORPG and far away from their lore, isn´t it?

There is a lot of more stuff like this, if we take a deeper look at it. SE did easy in this way by calling us the WoL and placing new areas. It got combined tricky in the story, but it doesn´t match lore-wise so well together / the lore is getting ignored to cater the players experiences and wishes.
This means, that arguments like "it has been in FF game X so or so" are not a real thing. As i´ve said, it´s an MMORPG in it´s first case and stuff is getting finetuned on that fact.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

The main thing for me that I’ve always hated on SMN is that the focus is on the caster and not the pet. This rework doesn’t fix that, if anything it doubles down on it. The gameplay they showed is fine, but the issue for me is the caster is using the attacks, I HATE that.

It’s a simple change, make the summon stay out for the duration and use the attacks rather than giving attacks to the caster. Failing that, at least make it so the summon enhances carbuncle, so carbuncle is using the attacks rather than the caster.

I just hate this design where the pet is just a bystander on a job where they should be central to the playstyle. I’d much rather the summons work like current demi bahamut than what they have in store.

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Then hopefully they will create a class for you, maybe beast master. Because THIS is what summoner should have been from the start. And it's what the lore says the SMN is, the egis were never supposed to do the attacks according to the lore. The summoner was supposed to assume the powers of the primal, and they have been doing just that ever since the trances and deathflare were introduced. Big summons come in, do a big attack and then screw off, onto the next. To hell with this running around with chicken nuggets with terrible clunky AI who barely make a dent. The fact that some people to this day will still defend old summoner who had an entire pet that was completely useless is beyond me. Good riddance dots and egis, they won't be missed. Especially the egis, bane was fun though. But anyway s,m literally have most of the major primals, more love than any class got this expansion spell-wise. A broken system in which some pets got no use, completely reworked into abilitiess that will ALWAYS be used. On top of that, gave Summoner a new heal, gap closer, melee attack and added on to bahamut phase. It's time to stop demanding more after getting everything.

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Originally Posted by Talec

Lots of people seem to be happy about the summoner changes - but dunno I feel its just because it got even more flashier. But for what I see the problem seems to even get worse.

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Most of us are, it's the same general people making the same complaints that Yoshi listened to in the past that made the class such a confused mess for this long that left most people opting to play red mage and black mage instead of it while trashing it every chance they got. Sorry, but when the general consensus of a class everywhere you go is negative, there's something wrong. I hope he will one day give them the job they want, thankfully SMN is no longer a confused missmatch of a class. And i've played the class since ARR.

This is the proper direction, take the one fun and interesting idea of summoner and turn it into a functioning rotation and class. Just looking at it, it already looks less awkward than current SMN. This also lays a more covenient groundwork for them to build up in further expansions

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Originally Posted by MercuryD

Summoner wasn't ever really a "pure" summoner, meaning they only summon and have access to no other abilities. Like, classic and iconic summoners throughout the franchise like Yuna, Rydia, Eiko and Garnet were more White mages and Black mages with the ability to occasionally summon. This new iteration is the closest the mainline franchise will have to a pure summoner. Technically, Dissidia and NT Yuna could be called pure in the same way 6.0 is but I digress.

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Especially the more recent games like XV where in summons would come in, use their signature ability and then leave

When it comes to lore restrictions vs fun gameplay, games tend to do better when they go the fun route.

For example, “due to lore” in WoW the developers continued to refuse to add playable High Elves despite a consistent push from the community and instead added Void Elves out of nowhere, ala 2019 fanfest when Hrothgar were revealed instead of male Viera. While in WoW it took the most recent Blizzard scandal for the devs to finally relent and give them High Elf customization options, here in FFXIV it only took a single expansion cycle for them to give the playerbase what they were asking for.

It’s a shame that it took this long for them to get summoner right, but I commend them for doing so at last nevertheless. I do not care at all about lore restrictions that can be written out easily. Even the existence of G’raha Tia as a main character would not be possible if they held true to such stringent restrictions since Miqo’te men are just as rare if not more than Viera, and he's become one of the most popular and beloved characters in the entire game.

Moving forward, the most logical progression would be for summoner to gain new summons whether they are trance upgrades/one offs like the new Ifrit/Garuda/Titan. Some likely candidates would be the Warring Triad, Alexander, Leviathan, Ramuh, etc. The possibilities are endless now that the class is no longer a poison mage.

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Originally Posted by Vallhallix

Most of us are, it's the same general people making the same complaints that Yoshi listened to in the past that made the class such a confused mess for this long that left most people opting to play red mage and black mage instead of it. I hope he will one day give them the job they want, thankfully SMN is no longer a confused missmatch of a class.

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Such claims confuse me always. I see a lot of summoners running around in any content and given to ff.logs, SMN is as much played as RDM, NIN, DRG in the endgame meanwhile BLM is on the level of MNK, BRD, MCH which fall hard behind for obvious reasons. Only SAM overshines them all followed by DNC. So i really can´t underline "most of us are", "play XY instead."

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I do not care at all about lore restrictions that can be written out easily.

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You´ve claimed that SMN should be like the one from other FF titles, that they never had Dots etc... it´s called lore in some way. That you don´t care about it on the other hand makes it a bit invalid or?

PS: I hate Graha'Tia. Story-wise he should´ve died. It doesn´t make sense, that he´s still there. In a good story about war, characters needs to be sacrifized and yes, Haurchefant ftw!

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Originally Posted by ssunny2008

Such claims confuse me always. I see a lot of summoners running around in any content and given to ff.logs, SMN is as much played as RDM, NIN, DRG in the endgame meanwhile BLM is on the level of MNK, BRD, MCH which fall hard behind for obvious reasons. Only SAM overshines them all followed by DNC. So i really can´t underline "most of us are", "play XY instead.

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I wish I could find them. I will often see Sam, Nin, Drg, Rdm and Blm if caster i'm usually the only SMN lmao. And if I hear anything about SMN it's usually very negative compared to RDM and BLM even the recent wowfugee streamers follow this mindset of it being a bad class in it's current state and opt for rdm/blm

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Originally Posted by Vallhallix

I wish I could find them. I will often see Sam, Nin, Drg, Rdm and Blm if caster i'm usually the only SMN lmao. And if I hear anything about SMN it's usually very negative compared to RDM and BLM even the recent wowfugee streamers follow this mindset of it being a bad class in it's current state and opt for rdm/blm

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Seriously in stuff like daily-roulette you´ll find more leveling classes than anything else. Since SMN is for sure a popular starter class, they won´t show up there as often as a BLM for example. Ppl just level all classes to 80 and obviously don´t play their mains then. I did the same and will never touch the most classes again until the next level cap appears, but i´ll stay on MNK and Tanks for the endgame.
And in stuff like bozja / eureka... the most pick a healer or RDM for obvious reasons too.

(So if anything, the most classes you see in daily-roulette are either classes which can be unlocked late in the game or are more unpopular than everything else. ((Maybe)) And ppl have different opinions... of course those who dislike something, are the loudest. Those who like something, just play and enjoy it! )

Stringent lore restrictions that negatively impact people's enjoyment =/= the thematic basis or structure of longstanding jobs. If you cannot understand this, there is little point in pressing the issue further because you are clearly grasping at anything and everything to justify the failed state of current SMN. After 8 years of warlocks telling me to go play another class or another game, I’m merely saying the same that was said to me for so long.

Indulging their requests for so long brought the class to its breaking point. So please go play bard and leave us real summoners in peace, unless your intent is to also destroy that class mechanically and aesthetically after it too was fixed for 6.0 by giving it more musical abilities. If you cannot find any satisfaction, then simply take a break until 7.0’s new dot class is released. You won’t have to wait nearly as long as I did for a real summoner in this game, that’s for sure.

Also, G'raha Tia essentially was sacrificed seeing as how in previous games, crystallization = death or passage into immortal life/heaven. Again, another recurring theme in the series. However, his survival will ultimately be for the better since he not only adds functionality as an all-rounder trust for EW but also adds more to the story as a new party member who gave so much in order to be a part of our journey.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Stringent lore restrictions that negatively impact people's enjoyment =/= the thematic basis or structure of longstanding jobs. If you cannot understand this, there is little point in pressing the issue further because you are clearly grasping at anything and everything to justify the failed state of current SMN. After 8 years of warlocks telling me to go play another class or another game, I’m merely saying the same that was said to me for so long.

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You know a class is broken, when you have to constantly defend it in every conversation. Literally me anytime summoner is the topic even in-game lol. There are a minority who liked the broken state of SMN but that much more who hated it. The amount of times you see ''I might actually play summoner now'', ''they made summoner cool'', in all the reactions is very telling of the sentiment held for summoner compared to all other jobs heh.

All that remains that needs to be fixed now, is physick. WHY IS IT STILL THERE.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Stringent lore restrictions that negatively impact people's enjoyment =/= the thematic basis or structure of longstanding jobs. If you cannot understand this, there is little point in pressing the issue further because you are clearly grasping at anything and everything to justify the failed state of current SMN.

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I don´t grasp for anything to justify the current state of SMN. I´ve claimed more than once that both are no SMN´s for me, just with the addition that the new one is nothing more than -dots +animations = still no real SMN gameplay.
And it´s still YOUR enjoyment, not those of others. Some ppl enjoy the current SMN, some might enjoy the new SMN, i would enjoy something way different. And you started the "FF series lore" about SMN as argument, just to not care about it in the next moment. It makes the argument completely invalid and shows, that you grasp for stuff to argue for your own, not for others, not for the lore and not for the gameplay. (Since you don´t even know, if it would really match your expectations.)

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Stringent lore restrictions that negatively impact people's enjoyment =/= the thematic basis or structure of longstanding jobs. If you cannot understand this, there is little point in pressing the issue further because you are clearly grasping at anything and everything to justify the failed state of current SMN. After 8 years of warlocks telling me to go play another class or another game, I’m merely saying the same that was said to me for so long.

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K but the lore reasons for mechanics that made the class complex and engaging was a positive impact for me, and other people who currently play summoner, and they made sense in the context of Hydaelyn and allowed for fun class fantasy. The only thing about the lore that seemed off was the "sorry we can't make egis more graphically impressive 'cause ps3/potato users" justifications for the egis' designs and the "sorry we can't give you any more egis 'cause we ran out of ideas".

But really who died and made your opinions the definition of "true summoner"? People have repeatedly made the point that the summoner role has NEVER been consistent in FF. And yet you meet their points with name calling and gatekeeping and just sating "true summoner" like it's fact. We've all been playing A DEFINITIVE NUMBERED FINAL FANTASY® BRAND SUMMONER™ for 8 years, but no that doesn't count because it doesn't count because...?? Oh right, it's a design that didn't line up with your own personal opinions.

Did you even play the current iteration of summoner?
Can you give any constructive criticisms of it outside of "I don't like dots" or saying something incredibly vague like saying it's not a "true summoner"? Can you contribute to the discussion about how it will play different from what we currently have that isn't tied to its attack animations?

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Originally Posted by Vallhallix

You know a class is broken, when you have to constantly defend it in every conversation.

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Players just cry way to much about gameplay, just because they like some aesthetics or the role to be a SMN, MNK, MCH, whatever class is discussed permanently.

There is no acceptance for those, who like a class as it is and played it for ages. There isn´t even acceptance for those, who finished any content with a class, not just the braindead dungeons. It lacks fully of acceptance, because ppl are selfish and want everything to be catered to them.

That´s the big issue, not that a class is more special, not so often played or without 1000 meme´s. FF14 has so many class to offer and a bunch of ppl still insist that the last class on gods earth needs to be made for them for whatever reason. (And yes, in the most cases those ppl are just bad or too lazy to practice a class, maybe even feared like "i can´t do this" and stay on an easy job to cater their self-consciousness.)
This brought us to the point we´re at.

And i really get the "love" to the new SMN. But gameplay-wise it´s NOTHING! Atleast not the stuff Yoshi showed us. It´s just another step to the class homogenization with some bling-bling to cater some ppl meanwhile a bunch of current SMN mains is getting fckd up. Objectively seen SMN will make a step back in complexity and uniqueness, no matter if someone likes it or not.

EDIT: Really ppl needs to stop to get blinded by minor issues, some animations or even self-made issues. Do you play a game to play or just to watch some animations and for freeloot by pressing 3 buttons in an order?

I have played every mainline FF title and I have levelled SMN to 80 a grand total of one time in comparison to the multiple times I've levelled BLM and RDM across several of my alts. Poison mage gameplay sucks. When I want to grind Eden/NieR for glams as a caster I vastly prefer those two classes as opposed to affliction warlock. I know what a real summoner looks and feels like because I have experienced every game where they've shown up. If you get it, you get it. If you don't, sorry. Go look up on youtube what summoners have been like in past games so you can get an idea of what I mean in terms of its aesthetic and gameplay. In 6.0 I will proceed to actually play summoner beyond simply levelling it and forgetting about it afterwards along with my other classes.

I'm largely uninterested in hearing your defense of a job that got so bad it had to be reworked from the ground up.

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Originally Posted by Roda

Did you even play the current iteration of summoner?
Can you give any constructive criticisms of it outside of "I don't like dots" or saying something incredibly vague like saying it's not a "true summoner"? Can you contribute to the discussion about how it will play different from what we currently have that isn't tied to its attack animations?

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I have played every mainline FF title and I have levelled SMN to 80 a grand total of one time in comparison to the multiple times I've levelled BLM and RDM across several of my alts. Poison mage gameplay sucks. When I want to grind Eden/NieR for glams as a caster I vastly prefer those two classes as opposed to affliction warlock. I know what a real summoner looks and feels like because I have experienced every game where they've shown up. If you get it, you get it. If you don't, sorry. Go look up on youtube what summoners have been like in past games so you can get an idea of what I mean in terms of its aesthetic and gameplay. In 6.0 I will proceed to actually play summoner beyond simply levelling it and forgetting about it afterwards along with my other classes.

I'm largely uninterested in hearing your defense of a job that got so bad it had to be reworked from the ground up.

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So that's a no to all of that then. K.

At any rate, you should go try the current version before they delete it. You might like it.
I didn't like dots OR pets before I played it.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I'm largely uninterested in hearing your defense of a job that got so bad it had to be reworked from the ground up.

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A bunch of classes have been reworked over the time just because of whiny ppl and not because they´ve been so bad and unplayable. And those on the cost of players who enjoyed them and not even for the better gameplay-wise. The dumbdowns are real.
I´m pretty sure, that nobody would say a word if the classes would stay in their core and get advanced with more complexity, uniqueness or even simple fixes to real issues. But the homogenization and dumbdowns are something different and completely unneccessary.

But well, i´m not catered now and i won´t get catered with SMN in the future. You´ll get catered and SE shows their middlefinger to all actual SMN mains. So why care about it? Everything is fine, isn´t it?

Here is an analogy:

McDonald’s is known for serving hamburgers.

However, the only McDonald’s in a particular city for some reason sells sushi instead of hamburgers. Multiple times, they’ve tried combining the two but have failed each time and have difficulty attracting new customers.

Since I like hamburgers, I’m not interested in a McDonald’s that is trying to be unique by selling sushi. Most people in the city also decide to take their business elsewhere, because they want a normal burger.

However, a minority of people like going to this McDonald’s and have railed against anyone who has advocated for making this McDonald’s an actual McDonald’s by coming up with every excuse imaginable.

Finally, the CEO of McDonald’s shuts the failed sushi operation down and they announce the return of hamburgers, and most people in the town are really happy. The restaurant is now successful. However the people who liked eating sushi at this McDonald’s now feel like they’ve been cast out, because that McDonald’s should have never been selling sushi in the first place.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Here is an analogy:

McDonald’s is known for serving hamburgers.

However, the only McDonald’s in a particular city for some reason sells sushi instead of hamburgers. Multiple times, they’ve tried combining the two but have failed each time and have difficulty attracting new customers.

Since I like hamburgers, I’m not interested in a McDonald’s that is trying to be unique by selling sushi. Most people in the city also decide to take their business elsewhere, because they want a normal burger.

However, a minority of people like going to this McDonald’s and have railed against anyone who has advocated for making this McDonald’s an actual McDonald’s by coming up with every excuse imaginable.

Finally, the CEO of McDonald’s shuts the failed sushi operation down and they announce the return of hamburgers, and most people in the town are really happy. The restaurant is now successful. However the people who liked eating sushi at this McDonald’s now feel like they’ve been cast out, because that McDonald’s should have never been selling sushi in the first place.

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Because FF14 doesn´t offer more than SMN? Because you know the exact numbers to claim stuff like minority / majority? Common... and imo, the old SMN is the hamburger and the new one will be sushi, since it has never been like this.

I do not need to know the exact numbers of anything because the day they released the job action trailer the reception for summoner was overwhelmingly positive except for the affliction warlocks who ruined the class for the past 8 years. It was clear to pretty much everyone. Even so, here's a small-scale survey someone did on reddit where the new summoner came in 3rd place just after sage and reaper where they asked people what they plan to main in EW.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...b_will_you_or/

You still haven't given us any solid reason why things "failed" (hint, it's not the fact that we had damage over time mechanics)
NuSMN is not "successful" because it currently does not exist, and you have not given any solid reason why it's any better.

Now I'm not one who wants to invalidate feelings, but design changes cannot be based on vague feelings.
And once again, just because you don't like (or understand) something, doesn't mean it's not valid. FFXIV is a numbered, main-line final fantasy title. The producer and director since 2.0 (Summoner's introduction to the game) is currently on the board of directors. This game is not a rogue operation to besmirch whatever your idea of a summoner is.

Oh and they haven't fixed smn's breaking point. They are only procrastinating on it.
Do you know why?

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I do not need to know the exact numbers of anything because the day they released the job action trailer the reception for summoner was overwhelmingly positive except for the affliction warlocks who ruined the class for the past 8 years. It was clear to pretty much everyone. Even so, here's a small-scale survey someone did on reddit where the new summoner came in 3rd place just after sage and reaper where they asked people what they plan to main in EW.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...b_will_you_or/

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Lmao, there's five times as many dps parses for TEA (picking this one, because people often call ultimate raiders such a small portion of the community that SE should ignore because X or Y) than there are dps on that chart. All that data shows is that .3747% of the ffxiv reddit is affected by hype. Which, uh, is pretty well known.

Hype is not reality.

I don't need to write an essay to explain my thinking. Poison mage gameplay was bad. The summons which are the core thing about summoner were also bad. There is no need for me to articulate this further. There's nothing vague about it. The class was a broken disjointed mess that was trying to be everything at once, and now they've fixed it by giving it a focus around summon magic. I am thankful that Yoship gave us a summoner that feels like a summoner now.

You can choose to continue debating this issue if you wish, but you will not convince me that 5.0's warlock is better than what I've seen of the summoner we are getting in 6.0.

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Originally Posted by ssunny2008

Players just cry way to much about gameplay, just because they like some aesthetics or the role to be a SMN, MNK, MCH, whatever class is discussed permanently.

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SMN main here, i'm not getting screwed over at all, my class finally seems like it has a solid fix and actual rotation. And rid itself of all it's clunky mechanics. I will miss stuff like baning additional targets which wasn't even complex in the first place, neither was refreshing two dots, but I prefer my class plays like an actual one instead of a confused disaster of a class when every other class in the game has all but tightened and smoothed out their gameplay, and it was at it's worst in shb especially with the clunky pet abilities which the MAJORITY of people did not like, with phoenix being the only highlight of an uninspired clunky rotation. People cried, because it was bad, people actually swapped to the other casters because it was that horrible to play, loyalist like me stuck with the class even though I acknowledged it was bad. Stop pretending it's just outsiders MOST of us smn mains are happy with this change and rejoicing, not until I came to this dps section did I find smns complaining about this change, which pretty much happens with every change here to begin with.

This is what most people wanted. More summons that worked in the line of phoenix, we even wanted Bahamut to have skills in the same vain of Phoenix, to make his phase less boring, I was here months ago when people were demanding it. They listened. All while keeping SMN's mobility intact, and fixing other minor issues. They took 3 poorly designed clunky pets, 1 completely useless one, and made them into something that works, something where all 3 are utilized. Now they have a proper base for the class, and should not suffer as much confusion going forward like they've done with every single expansion for the previous SMN. SMN working like a reskinned arcanist, and being bundled in with Scholar was a mistake, they spent too many expansions trying to fix that mistake. The summons changing the SMN abilities with the introduction of Phoenix was the best thing to happen to the class in years, and the logical thing for them to build upon. Now they have a proper direction for SMN as we've seen with the Ifrit charge and melee, this opens the door for them to get creative with future abilities instead of spending each expansion trying to add on new things to an already busted class. No doubt in future content they will add new skills to our existing summon phases.

This will probably also fix how terrible Summoner plays low level compared to every other class in the game.

Personally I'd rather they had embraced actual pet management instead of these fake Egi avatars. The system wasn't that far from being fixed entirely. And current Summoner was the pet job where it felt the most fluid on too due to how pets were woven into the rotation.

Aesthetics aren't always mechanics. Mechanics are, however, Aesthetics. And when it comes to current Summoner, I wanted its Arcanist sub-theme to remain a core part of the role, with the Summoner theme highlighted in Demis. Thus, these pseudo-bardsongs irritate me, not because I think there's a problem with people who hated the DoTs, but because it could easily have been kept around.

To me, SE gave up, plain and simple. Will people it enjoy it? Sure. Will it have as much depth? No. Even Stormblood Summoner had more, and for the WRONG reasons, imo.

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of DoTs. They're not added complexity, they're just busy work. Yup, my DoTs are almost out, time to refresh them. Boring.

That said, they were hardly the problem with the Summoner from a mechanics reason. I wouldn't say they were a flaw from a thematic standpoint, even if I wouldn't say they were precisely on brand. (Yes, Rydia could poison, but all that argument leads to us that we should just delete SMN and tack summons onto other classes. Like, yeah, cool, my Faris could be both a Samurai and a Summoner. Maybe Summoner should have been a Melee unit, cause there is precident.)

I do hope that the bay sayers are wrong and the game ends up fun. I'm in no position to judge, since I'm a filthy casual, but this argument is going nowhere.

Edit: Hmm... That post sortof got away from me. Uh... They probably could have kept the Power fantasy and the pets and the Dots. The DoTs probably would have bored me, but oh well.

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Originally Posted by Vallhallix

This is what most people wanted. [...] No doubt in future content they will add new skills to our existing summon phases.

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Lots of things to address here:

- You didn't get more summons that worked like Phoenix. You got avatars that show up and go away after 2 seconds. What you actually got is 3 different phases where you fight as a channeler/geomancer/elementalist, not a summoner

- Let's compare old Bahamut and new Bahamut. Old Bahamut was a burst phase and you could feel the build up to it. In order to maximize DPS you needed to prepare for it and get 4 Ruin IV stacks. Movement was something you had manage, not necessarily because of pet AI (which was only a problem in the last ~5 seconds anyway), but because you would alternate instacasts with hardcasts. You could deal with movement by shuffling around your use of instacasts while still keeping your Wyrmwaves total to 8. You could even have the option to decouple Bahamut from DWT.
New Bahamut: there's no build up, Bahamut is a GCD you use at the start of the fight. It is actually the build up to something minor. Movement? Not an issue, you get to spam the same button over and over again which is of course an instacast, so you could run a marathon if you wanted to. We did get two cool animations in return, though. If you think the new Bahamut is more fun/less boring, then good for you. Sadly, me and other people wouldn't mind to have to use their brain even just a little.

- They kept mobility intact? They took a very mobile caster and made it a phys ranged DPS. SMN was very mobile but its mobility options were tied to DPS, so you still had to manage those (Assaults and Ruin IV). Now, all gone, you are the... Instacast mage, I guess?

- You didn't get functional pets, you get 3 animations. Pretty, but still animations.

Edit: Actually, I don't want to get caught up in a conversation on it.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I don't need to write an essay to explain my thinking. Poison mage gameplay was bad. The summons which are the core thing about summoner were also bad. There is no need for me to articulate this further. There's nothing vague about it. The class was a broken disjointed mess that was trying to be everything at once, and now they've fixed it by giving it a focus around summon magic. I am thankful that Yoship gave us a summoner that feels like a summoner now.

You can choose to continue debating this issue if you wish, but you will not convince me that 5.0's warlock is better than what I've seen of the summoner we are getting in 6.0.

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You don't need to do anything. But if you want to have your posts be taken seriously, then you need to explain yourself instead of stating your feelings as some objective fact and to stop with the name calling of other people who have different opinions than you.
Honestly, that name calling, and your refusal to explain anything from your position (and, honestly your admitted lack of experience playing summoner in content) gives off the impression to me that you don't understand how summoner currently works (or, also an option, you don't understand how warlock works). And if you don't give off the impression of understanding the job, then how can we trust that you know the breaking points it was coming to (dot's weren't it, and it's still coming), or where the gameplay systems clashed with the summoning mechanics (the only problem with the dots were their particle effects and names, other systems were far more in the way of the fantasy, job flow, and progression). My questions are me literally trying to help you help your own argument.

Like, if you want, I can help you in front of a dummy. The rotation isn't hard or clunky (it's not going to be any more streamlined in EW), and honestly the dots take up about as much brainpower as your favorite caster, BLM, probably less so 'cause BLM has reactive procs to deal with and manage.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

Personally I'd rather they had embraced actual pet management instead of these fake Egi avatars. The system wasn't that far from being fixed entirely. And current Summoner was the pet job where it felt the most fluid on too due to how pets were woven into the rotation.

Aesthetics aren't always mechanics. Mechanics are, however, Aesthetics. And when it comes to current Summoner, I wanted its Arcanist sub-theme to remain a core part of the role, with the Summoner theme highlighted in Demis. Thus, these pseudo-bardsongs irritate me, not because I think there's a problem with people who hated the DoTs, but because it could easily have been kept around.

To me, SE gave up, plain and simple. Will people it enjoy it? Sure. Will it have as much depth? No. Even Stormblood Summoner had more, and for the WRONG reasons, imo.

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Imo they needed to change how they approach(ed) and use(d) demis to fix what was/is coming.

But I am the same mind of you who wanted to be a powerful arcanist who also controlled the power of summoning (like how in previous FFs summoners had a second role). I'm glad that at least not EVERY attack is tied to another entity doing something instead of me.

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Originally Posted by ssunny2008

I don´t know why ppl still compare this game to other FF titles. It´s an MMORPG and those work way different than solo games, even if FF´s lore is in it´s core. The FF games have evolved and changed their game play over the years too, so...

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I was replying to the person who said something about same as older ff smn, just forgot to quote. I know very well it's an mmo and will be different obviously. Although I think they can and should first and foremost keep the base idea and traditions to all the jobs related to the series. And yes ff has changed game play over the years, but summoning has mostly still been the same, only difference is they spend more time on the battlefield for a longer period of time before doing their signature burst moves.

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Originally Posted by Miemi

it looks like the easiest job the game has ever had.

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Hi, yes, I'm a Scholar main. Hello.

I do not need to be a master chef to know when a dish doesn't taste good, and I don't need to be a SMN main for my opinion to count. I levelled the class to 80 in Shb and didn't like it. I gave it a fair chance. The dish has been sent back to the kitchen and a better one is now on its way. Why should I main a class I do not enjoy? I am also confused that you mention name calling? It has been commonplace to compare SMN more to warlock than an actual FF summoner since ARR.

Afflcition Warlock description taken from the main WoW site:
"A master of shadow magic who specializes in drains and damage-over-time spells."

In any case I support the direction the class is going in now and I am optimistic about its future. It will probably become my go to caster for several of my alts, which I'll boost to 80 once the next wave of job skip potions come out. Poison mage will join bow mage, gun mage, rDPS healing limit breaks, 4.0 dark arts spam, bards that can only sing to themselves, and old AST’s useless cards, along with many other bad design choices in the past where it belongs. There is no reason to go into any further depth because it's plain to see for most.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Lots of things to address here:

- You didn't get more summons that worked like Phoenix. You got avatars that show up and go away after 2 seconds. What you actually got is 3 different phases where you fight as a channeler/geomancer/elementalist, not a summoner

- Let's compare old Bahamut and new Bahamut. Old Bahamut was a burst phase and you could feel the build up to it. In order to maximize DPS you needed to prepare for it and get 4 Ruin IV stacks. Movement was something you had manage, not necessarily because of pet AI (which was only a problem in the last ~5 seconds anyway), but because you would alternate instacasts with hardcasts. You could deal with movement by shuffling around your use of instacasts while still keeping your Wyrmwaves total to 8. You could even have the option to decouple Bahamut from DWT.
New Bahamut: there's no build up, Bahamut is a GCD you use at the start of the fight. It is actually the build up to something minor. Movement? Not an issue, you get to spam the same button over and over again which is of course an instacast, so you could run a marathon if you wanted to. We did get two cool animations in return, though. If you think the new Bahamut is more fun/less boring, then good for you. Sadly, me and other people wouldn't mind to have to use their brain even just a little.

- They kept mobility intact? They took a very mobile caster and made it a phys ranged DPS. SMN was very mobile but its mobility options were tied to DPS, so you still had to manage those (Assaults and Ruin IV). Now, all gone, you are the... Instacast mage, I guess?

- You didn't get functional pets, you get 3 animations. Pretty, but still animations.

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What's your point exactly? Because 6.0 smn actually summons six different entities and three different summoning styles in a whole job rotation instead of the lackluster egi's(one of which was never used) and the two time limited elder summons. Aesthetically speaking, this is much more pleasing. We still have carbuncle as an egi, we still have the two limited summons, but instead of more egi's, we now have three satisfying summon animations that deal damage and then changes attacks to three elemental attacks. The end of the day it's up to personal taste, whether it be aesthetically or functionality.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I do not need to be a master chef to know when a dish doesn't taste good, and I don't need to be a SMN main for my opinion to count. I levelled the class to 80 in Shb and didn't like it. I gave it a fair chance. The dish has been sent back to the kitchen and a better one is now on its way. Why should I main a class I do not enjoy? I am also confused that you mention name calling? It has been commonplace to compare SMN more to warlock than an actual FF summoner since ARR.

Afflcition Warlock description taken from the main WoW site:
"A master of shadow magic who specializes in drains and damage-over-time spells."

In any case I support the direction the class is going in now and I am optimistic about its future. It will probably become my go to caster for several of my alts, which I'll boost to 80 once the next wave of job skip potions come out. Poison mage will join bow mage, gun mage, rDPS healing limit breaks, 4.0 dark arts spam, bards that can only sing to themselves, and old AST’s useless cards, along with many other bad design choices in the past where it belongs. There is no reason to go into any further depth because it's plain to see for most.

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Agreed. SMN got super boring quickly when it first came out. The Egi mechanic was annoying and very aesthetically displeasing. HW not much changed, but in SB and ShB it only got slightly more pleasing with Bahamut and Phoenix. And now they are finally focusing on actual summoning instead of being the worst iteration of a summoner in the history of main FF games.

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Originally Posted by Rika007

I mean if you want to be pedantic sure, but if they only used JUST Rydia and Yuna's moves that would make for one boring as hell summoner. Of course other things need to be brought into supplement that.

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Yes other things need to be brought in to supplement the summon having one big move, the problem is the things they bring in have nothing to do with summoning. In ARR it was arcanist as the “sub job”, in heavensward it was trance turning the summoner into another caster, Stormblood/shadowbringers were my personal favourites because they made it about summoning, the egi became that filler while the demis were the burst, but the job still had arcanist and trance hanging off it from ARR and HW. Now it’s taking a step back and going back to trance style gameplay rather than a step forward going towards more demi-primals.

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Originally Posted by Rika007

I mean they probably absolutely could, but to me at least that would very much cheapen the power and rush of bringing out Bahamut and Phoenix. Summoner has always been about having a burst and when you play a burst class you're supposed to be building up to big moments where you unleash your most powerful abilities. Making them like Demi's would just make Summoner feel more like Black Mage, a more steady consistent damage dealer. Which there is nothing wrong with that, but I don't think that was their aim. Plus also there is the whole Bahamut/Phoenix have always been treated as special summons in the Final Fantasy lore, in XIV especially.

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Not necessarily, again, even if they just made it so carbuncle was doing the attack it would make a world of difference, especially now that he literally stands there doing nothing. E.G. after you summon gemi Titan to use earthen fury, carbuncle gains an Earth infusion and will cast Earth clap whenever you cast ruin. Same basic principle as what they’re going for but now it’s actually related to summoning.

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Originally Posted by Rika007

This is a lot of conjecture here, for many summoner players, trance mage Heavensward and Stormblood Summoner is there favorite iteration of the job (this also brings up one of the biggest issues with any proposed summoner rework, which is that the summoner player base has never been very unified in what it wants), and I don't think I ever saw the dev team come out and say, "Yeah we are having trouble with pets, so here's a whole new mechanic so we hope y'all forget about em." And I don't know how you can say they were moving away from trances, when instead many people were advocating for the Dreadwyrm trance system to get the same treatment as the Firebird Trance system. And It looks like that is what happen.

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It’s not conjecture. They talked about it in live letters a couple of times but everything got drowned in talk about egi glams. However back in ARR they didn’t want to buff pets out of fear that it would be too complicated for new players and decided that they wanted to improve summoner by giving power to the summoner rather than adding more egi which were struggling due to various factors.

I also wanted them to give DW trance the firebird treatment, that would be moving away from trance, what they’ve done is not give DW trance the firebird treatment but made both DW and firebird a hybrid of demi and trance. Rather than removing deathflare in favour of having demi Bahamut using ahk morn, they have made it so we use both and then given us some equivalent trance move during firebird.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rika007

I agree entirely, aesthetics are extremely important. To me this Summoner has maybe the best aesthetics of any of the jobs out there, and judging by the largely extremely positive reaction most fans are giving it on social media, many feel the same. I'm not saying your dislike of it is invalid, I'm just saying they went another way on the aesthetics, but they definitely in no way ignored them. If anything they put serious work into them.

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What they have that is related to summoning is great, I love what they’ve done, the gemi primals look great, their attack animations too. What I don’t love is what is NOT related to summoning, I don’t love the summoner charging into melee range and punching the enemy or casting deathflare. I don’t love carbuncle doing nothing. And it didn’t need to be this way, all of these attacks could have just been merged into moves performed by a summon and I don’t know why I need to explain why that would be more suitable on a job named summoner.

Quote:

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In ARR it was arcanist as the “sub job”, in heavensward it was trance turning the summoner into another caster, Stormblood/shadowbringers were my personal favourites because they made it about summoning

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SMN was originally designed with Arcanist in mind, the name "Summoner" didn't come about until after the mechanics of the job were made - Sage was the same. I'm guessing they chose "Summoner" because of the pet. Since then they've made it more of an actual Summoner every xpac which made a big ol' mess lol. Now we have people wanting all manner of different things for the same job and there's no pleasing everyone.

I do think they're going in the right direction, there's just going to be a lot of friction going forward no matter what. Personally I just want a job that has the same management play style as current SMN, idc what it's called. I still think it'd be best to split SMN off Arcanist so it can be its own thing - ideally replacing it with a new dot caster (but that"s just me wanting a dot caster).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I do not need to be a master chef to know when a dish doesn't taste good, and I don't need to be a SMN main for my opinion to count. I levelled the class to 80 in Shb and didn't like it. I gave it a fair chance. The dish has been sent back to the kitchen and a better one is now on its way. Why should I main a class I do not enjoy? I am also confused that you mention name calling? It has been commonplace to compare SMN more to warlock than an actual FF summoner since ARR.

Afflcition Warlock description taken from the main WoW site:
"A master of shadow magic who specializes in drains and damage-over-time spells."

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I don't need you to be a master chef, but I do need to know you understand what fish is. Because if someone kept sending a meal that they ordered back to my kitchen, I'd think they have no clue what they actually want.
A single sentence, heard second hand, is literally how the capybara is classified as a fish by the catholic church.

Now I will say the leveling process, especially after all these reworks is AGONIZINGLY BAD at teaching you how to play summoner. It is SO SOOOOOOOO BAD, that it even instills bad casting habits. Especially if you tried it in 5.0 and never touched it again. This is why I offer the training session, 'cause unfortunately the game doesn't provide that for you, and the progression path of summoner doesn't reflect the actual play of level 80 summoner. :T

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tulzscha

SMN was originally designed with Arcanist in mind, the name "Summoner" didn't come about until after the mechanics of the job were made - Sage was the same. I'm guessing they chose "Summoner" because of the pet. Since then they've made it more of an actual Summoner every xpac which made a big ol' mess lol. Now we have people wanting all manner of different things for the same job and there's no pleasing everyone.

I do think they're going in the right direction, there's just going to be a lot of friction going forward no matter what. Personally I just want a job that has the same management play style as current SMN, idc what it's called. I still think it'd be best to split SMN off Arcanist so it can be its own thing - ideally replacing it with a new dot caster (but that"s just me wanting a dot caster).

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I guarantee you that summoner is the way it is, is because the ps3 couldn't handle full summons. The entire storyline tries to justify not having them... until we do get them, but oops they committed on the visual design so hard in promotional art, class design, and story.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rewd

Lots of things to address here:

- You didn't get more summons that worked like Phoenix. You got avatars that show up and go away after 2 seconds. What you actually got is 3 different phases where you fight as a channeler/geomancer/elementalist, not a summoner

- Let's compare old Bahamut and new Bahamut. Old Bahamut was a burst phase and you could feel the build up to it. In order to maximize DPS you needed to prepare for it and get 4 Ruin IV stacks. Movement was something you had manage, not necessarily because of pet AI (which was only a problem in the last ~5 seconds anyway), but because you would alternate instacasts with hardcasts. You could deal with movement by shuffling around your use of instacasts while still keeping your Wyrmwaves total to 8. You could even have the option to decouple Bahamut from DWT.
New Bahamut: there's no build up, Bahamut is a GCD you use at the start of the fight. It is actually the build up to something minor. Movement? Not an issue, you get to spam the same button over and over again which is of course an instacast, so you could run a marathon if you wanted to. We did get two cool animations in return, though. If you think the new Bahamut is more fun/less boring, then good for you. Sadly, me and other people wouldn't mind to have to use their brain even just a little.

- They kept mobility intact? They took a very mobile caster and made it a phys ranged DPS. SMN was very mobile but its mobility options were tied to DPS, so you still had to manage those (Assaults and Ruin IV). Now, all gone, you are the... Instacast mage, I guess?

- You didn't get functional pets, you get 3 animations. Pretty, but still animations.

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And animations are all they were until FFX. Garuda coming, doing an attack and immediately leaving, is EXACTLY what I always wanted and thought I get before starting ARR, and got a pet / dot class instead.
I got used to it but class fantasy was really wanting. Now ? I don't care that I'm a geomancer for the 15 seconds after : the summons finally behave the way A LOT of people like them, which is the pre-FF10 way.
Demis are more like most recent FF.

So I can play current SMN in full rotation and find it ok, but the class fantasy isn't there. The new iteration is clearly dumbed down rotation wise (there is still one or 2 subtleties on some transitions, I tried checking a preliminary rotation) but class fantasy has shown its nose for the very first time. I would have been ok keeping the old one but now that I saw the new I'm really reaaallllyyy excited and want them to develop further that road now, with Alexander, Ramuh, Shiva....

The only gripe I have with the rework (I'm not 100% selfish, only 70%), is that they did not provide a pet / dot class at the same time. So for people who didn't play or love FF and their summoners until 9 and thus preferred the warlock / pet aspect of XiV smn, they got robbed of this kind of gameplay without a trade off. And will have to wait 2 years for the (very probable) next caster DPS in hope it embarks those "tactical" aspects.

I feel a lot of heat and pages would have been avoided just for one word : if the current iteration would have kept the name arcanist (without the demis), and the one coming presented as something new, a summoner, everybody would be more relaxed. Like someone mentioned, they attached the word summoner when gameplat wise they were not ready for it, and for 8 years it's been called that and so many people don't understand why we were upset of this "initial ill branding" that's getting rectified. And by rectified I don't mean superior gameplay but "adequate to classic FF name" gameplay.

Now they need to design a real pet / dot class as well. It's a shame they are only gonna do it in 2 years (with a chance of not happening), they should have done it here to split in 2 the functionnalities.