SMN - Why it is not a very interesting job and not a good upgrade from ACN

Then, you could look to additional content upon future patching. At that point you could implement a FF10 type summon system where you are shown riding the summon and take direct control. Obviously, the summon would still be much smaller than the primals that you fight through the game, but it would allow you to assume direct control. Now, each summon would be like a change of class. Each one could remain a damage focus so that the role was never altered, but the ability focus would change play style based on who you brought out.

Just some productive thoughts here as I was really looking forward to playing a summoner. I think the benefit to these ideas is that they could be made to the game without too much reworking of the existing structure. From reading other threads that have achieved developer support, it is that kind of productive suggestion set that we need to be looking at if we want this to get better.

I for one LOVE the way they did summoner. Albeit I never picked the class for its iconic name. If you're going by the classic feel of summoner in FF games then you would literally be stuck in cast/animation for a solid 10 - 15 seconds casting a huge global ult which would have some giant representation of the god/primal in question come out and do its thing. I for one think that would be quite boring. Flashy, but boring.

I've always played DoT classes in every MMO I've played and this one has pretty much every good element of every one of them. Except the pet. I LOATHE pets in mmos mainly due to retarded AI and other such issues.

Tried archer, was super boring having to basically spam the exact same buttons from level 1 - 35. Had to get THM to 15 in order to unlock SMN. WORST. TIME. IN. LIFE. if there is any class I would never play its that one. Just the feel of it is abhorrent to me. spamming one button and then pressing another just to spam a third (simplistic I know but you get my drift) all the while if you pull more than one mob your level you're insta-dead. Forget doing the 4+ level difficulty leves.

All in all, I think it really depends on the person. If you love DoT classes, then FFXIV summoner is for you. If you were expecting a pet class that relied on basically just PETS and flashy/long animations I'm sorry you're disappointed... but now people like me have a class to play!

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Originally Posted by Crevox

However, by doing so, they failed all previous fans of Summoner, because the gameplay style SE foced into it does not match the Summoner everyone wants and desires.

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The summoner "everyone" wants and desires would not have worked. We already saw one mess in FFXI which tried to be true to the concept and ended up with a job they grew fearful of being overpowered to the point of intentionally gimping it, which only got a sliver of actual use when Alexander and Perfect Defense were introduced.

That being said, a buddy of mine who was not pleased with SMN being the way it was in FFXI hasn't shown any issue with the way SMN is designed here. Then again, he did play a warlock in WoW as well and had no trouble making the connection.

Trayes wrote this in a topic. I think square should of went with something like this IMO.

I am sure no one cares what I think but I do not enjoy the dot summoner with lame pets. If i had to change the playstyle away from dots into something else it would look like this.

Ruin: 80 potency. Grants you and your pet a buff depending on what pet you have out.
(Ifrit: Grants the user and pet stacking buff that increases damage by 5%, stacks 2 times)
(Titan: Lowers damage taken by the user and the pet by 5% for 4 seconds. Does not stack)
(Garuda: Grants the user and the pet 3% spell speed. Stacks 4 times. Garuda gains double from this effect)

Ruin II: 80 potency. This spell and the pet do a special bonus attack.
(Ifrit: Apply a 15 potency dot for 18 seconds.) Both the player and the pet apply this dot.
(Titan: Gain health equal to damage dealt.) Both the player and the pet heal based on the damage of thier attack.
(Garuda: Deal half damage to all enemies near the target) Both the player and the pet do the aoe damage.)

Now these are just ideas of how I would have made the summoner feel closer to their pets while adding some depth to the overall playstyle of the summoner. Also this is me only changing 2 skills. I am sure I could give a huge list of ideas.

Like an aether flow spell that grants a party buff based on the summon out.
Garuda would buff move speed and spell speed
Titan would give everyone a small stone skin
Ifrit would add "Enfire" to all melee attacks

Or it could just pass whatever the Ruin 1 buff is to the party for a short time. Like 5 seconds. Everyone gains 10% damage or everyone takes 5% less damage or everyone casts faster. Who knows. But I would have tried to make more of a connection.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

You're letting your nostalgia blind you.

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I never said FFXI SMN was good, it was one of the worst not including FFXIV's. What I said was, even (as bad as it was) SMN in FFXI was more of a SMN than FFXIV's. I didn't level SMN in XI because it sucked, that isn't what I want. They should have either made it true to past FF SMNs or not done it at all. They had plenty of room to play around with BST if they wanted a pet class out. Intentionally ruining and morphing a loved class into something terrible was a waste.

i leveled summoner to 42. it was not what i was expecting or hoping for.

Now while im a little butthurt over it i just accepted that it wasnt for me as it is and i moved on to archer, which is effing awesome and it made it hurt less ^^

ps titan egi just looks stupid ><

edit: just to clarify i was hoping the summon would be the main focus of the job not just another dot with a health bar

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Originally Posted by Samuraiking

I never said FFXI SMN was good, it was one of the worst not including FFXIV's. What I said was, even (as bad as it was) SMN in FFXI was more of a SMN than FFXIV's. I didn't level SMN in XI because it sucked, that isn't what I want. They should have either made it true to past FF SMNs or not done it at all. They had plenty of room to play around with BST if they wanted a pet class out. Intentionally ruining and morphing a loved class into something terrible was a waste.

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I guess we'll never agree on this. Ruining and morphing a class...see my sig for that one. >.>;

As I mentioned, your alternative would be summons being like minions: untargetabble with animations here and there, but the spells coming directly from you and several of your ability slots being blank because the summon you have out would determine your skill set. Visually it'd look like a summoner, but mechanically you have basically a THM/BLM with prettier animations and more blood sweat and tears from the art department. Not even getting into how potentially messy ACN would be if you wanted to go with that design.

You'd play like the halfway point between Rydia and XI's summoner but without the pet mechanics. Would we be better off? Who knows.

The only real point against XIV's version of SMN is that Final Fantasy tends to have a ton of the damn things, and I'm not sure how that'll work out once Ramuh, Leviathan, Shiva and so on enter the picture. Midgarsomr and Kujata have been written off as great beasts, Odin and Bahamut are out due to their being elder primals.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

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I'm not unreasonable, I didn't say my ideas were good. It's not really my job or place to choose the mechanics, only offer ideas on what is terrible and give a few things that might improve it. None of us are so disillusioned as to think something like FFX summoner would work in an mmorpg, but we also know that a DoT pet class is a terrible idea FOR being SMN. Take the name summoner away. Call it Jibblybits or something and either find a way to make a proper SMN, or just don't make one.

As for RDM, I don't agree that FFXI did a perfect RDM, either. They turned it into a whm/blm with a refresh mechanic. While it's true for endgame it was a mage, there were PLENTY of people who used its melee mechanics too, though, just not in endgame.

In short, if you can't do it proper, don't fucking doing it. FF fans aren't the most reasonable and forgiving of souls.

It's a really shame to see and hear that something as iconic as the summoner has become so dull.
Since it's called a summoner indeed it should involve the summons abit more and make it their centre.
Also the story should involve more of the primals, I mean you're using a part of them. You should at least be able to learn abit more about them no?
Summoners should be made into something unique and cool, not some freaking dotter with a wierd pet.

At this point there is really no point in lamenting over what you think the summoner should be and how it should play. If they were to change it now while a lot of people would be happy I would wager an equal number would be unhappy. Personally, I love my Summoner. I love dot classes and you do get some of the iconic attacks. Really, all they need to do is make enkindle do fire 3 level damage and auto crit. I mean it is a 5 min cooldown. Then summoners would have a massive attack coming from the pet a la classic summoners but a bit more balanced for a mmo setting.

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I LOATHE pets in mmos mainly due to retarded AI and other such issues.

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Then you shouldn't be playing Summoner. That's the problem; the entire DoT concept you enjoy and they wanted should've never treaded into "Summoner" territory.

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The summoner "everyone" wants and desires would not have worked. We already saw one mess in FFXI which tried to be true to the concept and ended up with a job they grew fearful of being overpowered to the point of intentionally gimping it, which only got a sliver of actual use when Alexander and Perfect Defense were introduced.

That being said, a buddy of mine who was not pleased with SMN being the way it was in FFXI hasn't shown any issue with the way SMN is designed here. Then again, he did play a warlock in WoW as well and had no trouble making the connection.

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Just because the balance in FFXI was off doesn't mean it would be in this game. Furthermore, anything can be tweaked and changed to make it work in this game, but the summoner in this game is nothing like a Final Fantasy summoner at all.

Great post. Agree completely. I would love it if Fester were tied to the pet, much like Enkindle (without the bugs), and also get a slight damage bonus based on your dots. So have some significant base damage, maybe 2 dots' worth, then scale up to the current max with full dots. But your pet has to be in position to use it somehow. This would also help with the horrendous add switching; you could switch targets and unload a Fester or two into that target instead of trying to uselessly ramp up some dots that will fall off soon or spamming Ruin.

I think the job is fine as it is. Speaking mainly from a design standpoint, it's very good. It's a bit more DOT related than expected but that's fine as it meshes well for the player allowing them to deal damage and still have the chance to manage their pet. It lacks the historical pizzazz of the job and the crazy looking avatars but is a small concern, but gave us the XI iteration of the job. It took years for it to be really playable and not situational.

It could be adjusted to make using the pet a bit more active for the player but the DOT design is quite nice. The idea of having the Enkindle CD be 10 sec but having charges for the Summon's abilities would be a pretty cool idea. 3 charges at slightly reduced potency to allow more use but not overpowered. It'd give SMNs more direct AOE damage and would help bring back the feel of the job while keeping the current design.

I also dig the Ruin gaining a buff based on pet idea. It'd be a reason to use it over Ruin II besides lower MP.

Why cant SE just switch the pets to undead and call us Necromancer? Really it is Nec without the undead pets. We branch of of Thm which its old lore was Necromancy, ressurecting dead soldiers to fight for them. Every single game with a concept of Necromancy is life drain (energy drain), Diseases and poisons, (Bio, virus, and Miasma). I mean come on SE you shouldve given us a Bogey as a caster, a skeleton with a sword and shield as a tank. The lvl 3 summon couldve be a Shade like in 11 a Caster looking one,a DD one with a Great axe or GS. I mean its all there already but somewhere along the line some one at SE went "Her dur lets give them elemental pets and glue summoner on it except the pet is nothing like a summon!"

Hell even the way you go about getting the pets are lazy there is literally no reason you should look Carby as a Summoner, had they made the cutscene of Carby dying to save youi would get it.

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Originally Posted by Korvaene

What about the fact that the SMN's pets look completely uninspiring. As a comparison, consider FFXI's SMN pets. The artwork for FFXI's SMN pets is far superior to the ones in FFXIV. When I saw one in FFXI for the first time I thought "Wow! I can't WAIT to play SMN!". Seeing FFXIV's SMN pets for the first time did not inspire me to play SMN at all.

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I have to agree. The first time I saw SMN pets I thought they were minions. When I realized what I was looking at, my reaction was, "This dinky thing is a summon??"

Also dont forget that Aero (dot) can be used by Scholar which is a healing class but not by Summoner. this ppl are retarded...

You need to consider the scenarios as to why Summoners can't use CNJ skills.

If a Summoner had access to Protect, Stone Skin, Cleric Stance, it would make them more overpowered. Titan is already a beef cake, most people can tank a majority of bosses with him - imagine if we had Stone Skin...that would make him even more stronger. Protect ontop of that and Cleric Stance would basically break the gap between Scholar and Summoner. As it stands, a 50 Summoner can go get a 15 CNJ and get access to a free 50 Scholar without having to lvl it up because they share the main class being Arcanist. So far the only thing that limits this is the fact they share the same attributes. Summoners put theirs into INT and Scholars put theirs into MND. If Summoners had access to Cleric Stance, then they would put all their points into MND and just switch INT and MND with cleric stance to become DPS. Then when they went scholar they would have a MND build

The thing is while it may not be wise to have smns be huge 1-shot abilities, you could build off of this. They could be something you smn that does a good amt of damage to the target or target area on smn, but then stays and fights for a short period of time or until it dies (and could have degrading hp to prevent you from turning your summon into a "pet"). These smns could have different effects and be much more than just different damage (stun, agro pull, etc). I would imagine they would have mid-range cds and would vanish if a different smn was casted.

You would have skills that would more compliment your smn like buffs, maybe a DoT or 2, a smn heal to maybe increase the duration it is out.

The main problem I have with SE's new version of the smn is you are turning smns into pets. In what FF have any smns been pets. It is degrading to the smns and makes me sad for them :(

Let arcanists be the pet class and let Smners be actual smners instead of just and upgraded arcanist.

I wish they had made Summons a little larger as originally intended, I wish the primals we summon were other elementals rather than the ones the Beast tribes used. I would have liked our magic to been black magic as Rydia used in FF 2/4jp. I would like the creatures we summoned to be the main focus rather than over shadowed by what we do.

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Originally Posted by Conradus

I have to agree. The first time I saw SMN pets I thought they were minions. When I realized what I was looking at, my reaction was, "This dinky thing is a summon??"

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I am slightly disappointed by the summons, but I understand the reasoning. Regardless, it's not an excuse to make them so unimportant in the gameplay style and balance.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

I am slightly disappointed by the summons, but I understand the reasoning. Regardless, it's not an excuse to make them so unimportant in the gameplay style and balance.

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I think of the opposite, the summons are disappointing to me because it feels like I'm ash and pikachu, but the gameplay style, they are essential, pets are very important and one could argue that SMN dps is out of balance because of that extra edge (pet), because I honestly do not buy that summoners are balanced, I think they are imbalanced, and I feel this because of pet.

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Originally Posted by glim

I think of the opposite, the summons are disappointing to me because it feels like I'm ash and pikachu, but the gameplay style, they are essential, pets are very important and one could argue that SMN dps is out of balance because of that extra edge (pet), because I honestly do not buy that summoners are balanced, I think they are imbalanced, and I feel this because of pet.

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Your rotation has nothing to do with your pet besides popping buffs when their up, the enkindle, and contagion. After that, it auto attacks while you proceed to NUKE the enemy with DoTs as an offensive caster.

The pet has nothing to do with them being "imbalanced" if they even are. The pet should be doing the majority of your damage as a Summoner; instead, it's a helping hand on the side. If Summoner is imbalanced right now, it's not because of the pet, but simply because numbers are too high.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

Your rotation has nothing to do with your pet besides popping buffs when their up, the enkindle, and contagion. After that, it auto attacks while you proceed to NUKE the enemy with DoTs as an offensive caster.

The pet has nothing to do with them being "imbalanced" if they even are. The pet should be doing the majority of your damage as a Summoner; instead, it's a helping hand on the side. If Summoner is imbalanced right now, it's not because of the pet, but simply because numbers are too high.

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I do not disagree at all.

You people need to realize the parses you all are using are known to be inaccurate with summoners right now because they are not calculating dot dmg correctly. The parses are not adding up dots correctly so it looks like you're doing 250-280 dps lol.

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Originally Posted by quieren

You people need to realize the parses you all are using are known to be inaccurate with summoners right now because they are not calculating dot dmg correctly. The parses are not adding up dots correctly so it looks like you're doing 250-280 dps lol.

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if you have the time, do this.

1. go to a training dummy.
2. do your full rotation for 2 minutes.
3. have someone beside you to jot down the dot damages on the screen.
4. get all the damage done in the combat logs and the jot down dot damage on paper, sum it all up and divide it by 120 seconds
5. ???
6. profit!


bonus round: compare your research to the downloadable parser to see if the damage is "inconsistent".

After reading some more about summoner I became really disappointed about them.
Here I was totally planing ons starting a summoner jst to this char... Now I know what u guys think, why level another'sr char?
Because I can lvl all classes on one char right? We'll you can but you'll eventually run out of quests to do and what then grind fates and level?
No im planning to splitting the classes evenly and still be able to enjoy myself while lvling, although you still have paladin who might give me some doubts.
I'll save that for another time, back on subject are they really so dull and boring as everyone makes them out to be? I play Dragoon cause there unique and no other game has them and thus far I'm not disappointed one bit. Also heard the story isn't that interesting either and I'm wondering how much or this is true?

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are they really so dull and boring as everyone makes them out to be?

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Arcanist is enjoyable, but Summoner doesn't really exist as a gameplay style in this game. Summoner is in this game isn't what anyone wanted. People like the DoTs, and that's fine, because that's Arcanist; but the Summoner in this game is way off.

There are a mydrid of interesting solutions they could have come up with. And I think they would have seen a better solution if the arcanist class not had such a mess of complicated dots to begin with. With this said I have some ideas.

If I had the power to change the summoner class I would probably do something interesting. I would follow suit with some of the interesting tactics thundermagi have and incorporate it into the dots, pets, and some "assist" nukes. Here are some ideas:

Summon Skills:
Ifrit would still be a melee summon, on a standard 2.5 second cast with a ~15 second recast: When cast Ifrit spawns instantly beside your target in a fiery wrath. All dots on your target and nearby targets burst in flames causing X damage per dot (some reasonable AE number). All dots are consumed and replaced with Cinders: a 20 second dot with a potency of 40 x each dot consumed.

Shiva would be a ranged summon, on a standard 2.5 second cast with a ~15 second recast: When cast Shiva spawns beside you and attacks your target. All dots on your target rapidly freeze solid causing X damage per dot (some reasonable direct damage number). All dots are consumed and replaced with with Frostburn: a 20 second dot with a potency of 50 x each dot consumed.

Direct damage spells:
Ifrit's Rage (only available when Ifrit is alive): standard 2 second cast with a 2 second recast. Deals fire damage with a potency of X. If Cinders is present deal Y additional damage to all nearby targets. If Coldfire is present deal 10% additional damage for 10 seconds stacking up to 3 times.

Shiva's Embrace (only available when Shiva is alive): standard 2 second cast with a 2 second recast. Deals ice damage with a potency of X. If Frostburn is present deal Y additional damage and 20% slow for 5 seconds. If Coldfire is present gain 5% mana back.

Ultimate:
Dual Summon: standard 2.5 second cast with a 5 minute recast. Ifrit and Shiva are summoned simultaneously. All dots on your target burst in freezing flames causing X damage per dot (some higher damage number). All dots are consumed and replaced with Coldfire: a 20 second dot with a potency of 60 x each dot consumed. After 20 seconds your summon with less health despawns.

The idea would be that your summons would still be summons but they would be tuned to do less passive damage themselves and the damage would be swaped to the active direct damage when they are summoned, the dot applied from consuming other dots, and the following direct damage spells. This would make for a much more summoner oriented class and would bring in some interesting interaction between their unique skills.

After thinking about it a bit I would imagine if I removed the dot consumption interaction so each summon is a DD + dot on cast they would be very easy to understand and work with.

Your gameplay would be essentially starting with one of your summons out (since they still persist after their dots or whatnot falloff). You start dotting your target up with your arcanist abilities and then you summon based on the need for AE or direct damage. Your summon does a neat direct blast, converts your dots into their elemental dot and then you follow with a balance of dots and the direct damage.

Also the 1000 character reply cap is idiotic.

If anyone else finds this kind of summoner interesting let me know and I'll start a new post with the details to argue about.

The damage would have to be tuned appropriately (specifically I would reduce the summons damage that they do and perhaps reduce the dot damage to balance with the direct nukes). But its quite feasible and would make for a fun design. And fun is what were after.

Its hard to imagine a proper SMN when they aren't really any bonus for elemental damage type. Meaning you either pick only the most powerful one you will have ( with maybe a distinction on ranged or melee summon) or you absolutely don't care which one and its purely cosmetic.

I didn't really like the ffxi version but at least you were summoning different avatars depending on which buff you wanted. Thats the part i liked, being a subpar healer was not.

The future of SMN is not very clear for me at the moment but i'll stick to it anyway :)

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Originally Posted by Katlyna

Your gameplay would be essentially starting with one of your summons out (since they still persist after their dots or whatnot falloff). You start dotting your target up with your arcanist abilities and then you summon based on the need for AE or direct damage. Your summon does a neat direct blast, converts your dots into their elemental dot and then you follow with a balance of dots and the direct damage.

Also the 1000 character reply cap is idiotic.

If anyone else finds this kind of summoner interesting let me know and I'll start a new post with the details to argue about.

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All of your suggestions sounds good. That is the problem.

Your suggestions pretty much screams 'make Summoners OP', it will NEVER get implemented.

You need to tone down the skills a lot and make it a lot more simpler.

http://i.imgur.com/d0Fqk7p.jpg

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Your suggestions pretty much screams 'make Summoners OP', it will NEVER get implemented.

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A lot of things could be balanced if the numbers are tweaked right. Everyone doesn't want FFXI summoner in FFXIV because "they were weak" but that's just because of poorly tuned numbers.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

Just because the balance in FFXI was off doesn't mean it would be in this game. Furthermore, anything can be tweaked and changed to make it work in this game, but the summoner in this game is nothing like a Final Fantasy summoner at all.

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"Off" does not even begin to describe the clusterf*** known as FFXI's summoner.

And you're right, it's not like a console FF summoner. As I mentioned, those are basically black mages with spells that have prettier effects and artwork by Amano Yoshitaka. And can sometimes turn into vehicles.

The sad thing is that if SMN played "like a (console) FF summoner", you'd probably be complaining about how it is a straight out nuker with more heavily-graphical nukes.

If it played like XI's avatar system we'd end up with a weak class that wouldn't even fit into the armoury system. You can toot the "they never should have implemented it" horn, and in part I may agree with you, but then you'd be crying at the lack of summoner.

It's a lose-lose for SE, and they went with something that fits the armoury system, makes sense for a pet class and helps fill the DoM roster.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

A lot of things could be balanced if the numbers are tweaked right. Everyone doesn't want FFXI summoner in FFXIV because "they were weak" but that's just because of poorly tuned numbers.

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It's not poorly-tuned numbers. It's a poorly-designed concept they tried to pass off as a summoner. Barring a handful of gimmicks like Fenrir making everyone blurry in FFVI, summoners have always been about destructive power. Big damage, one-use nukes that cost a crapton of MP. XI tried to go the versatility route because they knew the big damage route would not work (adding to this, XI's devs had an obsession with niche gameplay and SMN would step on Black Mage's toes if it had actually been designed like the summoners of past FF's), which gave Tanaka & Co. that irrational fear they had for the job since it was introduced. Not to mention the concepts behind certain summons is OP as hell in the context of an MMORPG, and was easily proven when Odin and Alexander entered the game.

As I've repeated numerous times in hopes of people getting some actual perspective, a concept that doesn't translate well into a new genre (console RPGs and MMORPGs are different genres that call for very different designs) more often than not gets heavily altered or dropped altogether.

I was honestly hoping for FFX summons style gameplay but sadly they decided to go the route that no one likes at all.

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Originally Posted by Crevox

http://i.imgur.com/d0Fqk7p.jpg

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this image hurts... and makes me sad :( i'm feeling like a pokemon master now ><