SMN Why don't we hear about egi glamours anymore?

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Originally Posted by Exodus-E

Not this argument again...

Especially considering that:

1. Pre-FF10, summons were little more than glorified spells
2. Each FF game has different takes on certain jobs

Summoners in FF14 do summon something (Egis and Demis).
Now whether you agree with it or not is something else entirely.

Besides, the same could be said about every other job in the series in general (and FF14 in particular).
Like say, BLU or DRG in FF11, or SCH in FF14.

Personally, I'm OK with this incarnation of the Summoner job, and I'm hoping they continue expanding on it.

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Outside of XIV, all spells under the category of Summon Magic (or the equivalent) either directly involved a summon or was a summon itself. What you said isn’t remotely a rebuttal and just indicates you don’t know the series terribly well. I didn’t say anything about Egis. Nor did I say that they had to model a particular game. But the series standard should be followed. If they swapped the names of White Mage and Black Mage in XIV but nothing else responding with “well each game does it differently” is pretty moot at addressing what was said. You should think things through a bit more when replying instead of leaping to the defense of a poor decision.

As well you’re just making a logical fallacy by trying to point out other jobs, but none of your examples really violate the series standard. Outside of really XIV, which is part of the issue. Though Scholar isn’t really a good example of that.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

Outside of XIV, all spells under the category of Summon Magic (or the equivalent) either directly involved a summon or was a summon itself. What you said isn’t remotely a rebuttal and just indicates you don’t know the series terribly well.

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The problem here is the lore/rules they set up for this game.

Summoning Primals is very, very dangerous for everyone.
Thus, the only option for implementing the Summoner job here was through that one "loophole" (i.e. creating constructs based on them).

Besides, the summons from FF10 to FF13 weren't "spells" exactly, since they could be (somewhat) controlled.
But they were involved in one way or another.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

I didn’t say anything about Egis. Nor did I say that they had to model a particular game. But the series standard should be followed.

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But you did imply it by stating, and I quote:
"As is it really is a disservice to the job"

And you do call upon summons (as pets) to fight alongside you, and they're based off the classic ones besides (Ifrit, Titan and Garuda).
And through a certain skill (Enkindle), you command them to use their "signature moves" (Inferno, Earthen Fury and Aerial Blast).

Anything else is just extra (in this case, using DoTs), since that's pretty much what the Summoner job was in previous games: only about summoning.
Which is why they complemented it with other jobs/abilities in past games (such as Black Magic or White Magic).

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

If they swapped the names of White Mage and Black Mage in XIV but nothing else responding with “well each game does it differently” is pretty moot at addressing what was said. You should think things through a bit more when replying instead of leaping to the defense of a poor decision.

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• White Mages have consistently been known for using healing spells and having Holy.
• Black Mages have consistently been known for using attacking spells (with the classical elements of Fire, Thunder and Blizzard) and having Flare.
• Summoners have consistently been known for summoning creatures to fight alongside them.

So theme-wise, they're pretty much on point here.
If they swapped names while keeping their roles, THEN we'd have a serious problem.

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

As well you’re just making a logical fallacy by trying to point out other jobs, but none of your examples really violate the series standard.

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• DRG has a dragon minion to fight alongside you in FF11. The series standard had them fighting alone.
• BLU has a middle-eastern motif in FF11. The series standard had them having a domino mask and a cape (european motif).
• SCH is a healer and has a fairy companion in FF14. The series standard had them relying on their grimoire alone (and using spells from both schools of magic).

So they kind of do?

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Originally Posted by Exodus-E

Snip.

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I have... no idea how you've come to some of the conclusions you have on my stances. I'll try to be more mind numbing explicit in the hopes that you'll get what I'm saying.

1a. The lore is set up after the jobs are done. Plain and simple. They have bent lore to justify things in the past. We even have NieR, literally another series, represented as a continuation of that games story here in this game. You really can't use lore as a defense for anything.

1b. I did not, at any point, say that we should summon Primals.

1c. Creating constructs is perfectly fine. My issue is not with the fact that we have constructs. It's that the entirety of your moveset is not constructs or construct related.

1d. You still performed a "spell" to summon them.

1e. It isn't just X-XIII where they were involved. Every FF, outside of XIV, where you have a Summon Magic or specifically Summoner job, all things in that category are either the summons, or tied directly to them.

2a. I didn't because why it's a disservice has zero to do with Egis. They could all be Carbuncles, they could all have full on Trial level Primal size, it would change absolutely nothing about my stance.

2b. The issue is they fight alongside you instead of for you, in your place, so on and so forth. Only so many ways to say the basic thing. And I can think of ways that you could have something that is closer to being a Summoner than what we got without it necessarily being a pet job.

2c. The extra stuff is the issue, yes.

2d. And those were composite characters, not one job. The job, in and of itself, is just summons.

3a. And all of those are accurate to their jobs here, except Summoner. Summoner is known for summoning... and that's it. Summoner is not known for DoT spam or invocation.

4a. Dragoon really only has a small number of core traits to it. Fight with a lance. Jump. That's really it. And the very first Dragoon, FFII, they're known for fighting with dragons, so you're really off on that point already.

4b. Aesthetics aren't a violation of the theme, and you're wrong about that to boot. Quina does not, in any way, wear a Domino Mask and a Cape. I can point at Kimahri, Quistis, Strago, or if you want specifically jobs then I can point at the Gun Mage, which predates XI's and does not, in any way, resemble that. No matter which way you slice it they don't have a consistent aesthetic focus, not exactly an issue.

4c. Scholar appears in something along the lines of four games. Barring having a book and using magic you can't really point at much of an identity. FFIII they have items and scanning as a gimmick of sorts, low level magic (I want to say even lower than Red but I'm not positive and ultimately moot). FFXI they have an entirely different theme of basically having access to both but having to commit to one or the other. And TA2 they use books but their spells are all innately destructive and hit everyone on the field, enemy and ally alike. There are probably more but the only major consistent theme is "they use books". And prior to Shadowbringers where they cut a bunch of their moveset I would say they did have a fair balance of healing and damage.

Ah, now I see your point(s).

Apologies for earlier, but whenever people complain about SMN not being "true to past FF games", they usually refer to the Egis themselves (instead of anything else).

With that out of the way:

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Originally Posted by MirronTulaxia

1c. Creating constructs is perfectly fine. My issue is not with the fact that we have constructs. It's that the entirety of your moveset is not constructs or construct related.

2c. The extra stuff is the issue, yes.

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So that's what you meant all along.

Yes, while it's true that most of its toolkit doesn't involve its summons, I'd argue that from Stormblood on-wards they (slowly) started taking steps in the right direction.
With the introduction of Aetherpact -> Devotion or the altered Egi Assaults, for instance.

So I'd say it's just a matter of time before SMN becomes far more involved with them.

Still, the job itself should be able to defend itself (to complement its summons), so at minimum, those Ruin-related spells should stay.

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Originally Posted by Exodus-E

• Summoners have consistently been known for summoning creatures to fight alongside them.

So theme-wise, they're pretty much on point here.
If they swapped names while keeping their roles, THEN we'd have a serious problem.

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Would disagree with original ARR meeting Summoner theme very well in that Summoners are known to summon grand creatures pretty much exclusively, even those without scale (Carby) were pretty unique and had some sort of regal element about them, of that then each of these creatures, even the small ones, call down pretty excessive and visually incredible attacks.

Egi, as a visual set piece themselves, at no point meets grand summoning or really any sort of regal look (SMN do have access to carby, though- although perhaps slightly subjective in that some people might think potato is regal lol), in general the egi are pretty much the opposite of everything all the other FF summoners did visually, except perhaps the enkindle part of the egi (that is pretty big magic spell, at the time it was added at least). While mechanically SMN are for the most part a one off casting mechanic there has still be quite a diversity in general of what those one offs do (and then implementation even after that), so almost any sort of mechanic would 'fit' the SMN (pretty much any mechanic is 'ff summoning' one off, pet, party replacement, etc). Wanting to note at this point Demi of FFXIV are pretty grand. Which is to say there has been very little mechanical consistency with summoners but there has been a VERY and probably only consistent element of visual and conceptually thematic view of summoners- one that summons greatness to visually spectacular treats.

Anyways we've obviously not ARR SMN anymore, so if we're talking about the ShB SMN at level 80 I'm sure we agree, but I just wanted to narrow your definition down because 'calling/summoning just about anything is summoner as depicted by the FF series' I would say is definitely incorrect (I've added words simply to show that you need more words to give the proper image of FF's summoner, as it shouldn't be that vague if you wanted to recreate the image). Summoners, of FF, called down a specific type of action, one that had OOMPH whether it be cute like chocobo butt stumping, elegant and beautiful, gaudy and excessive, demonic and aggressive, it was always "extra", incredible like drowning the world in water or blasting through the planet's crust with it's laser beam. Now you'll need to pull that back a bit for MMO setting but you don't have to pull it back as hard as they did, as proven by many other MMOs with magical pet jobs with impressive presence on the field.

If you had to describe FF summoners visually in a single word it would be things like 'excessive', significantly more so than any other job- and consistent across all variants of the job (except ARR summoner). Which egi are definitely not lol; although, with their enkindle being sort of neat, though definitely 'minimized' and are definitely minimized compared to some of the other job's in this game's obnoxious actions, though we'v got our huge freaking pillars of fire and energy now with big chonking summons like bahamut. So like I said SMN has changed quite a bit since ARR, and perhaps you were making that definition without thinking of where we came.

That I just wanted to make your definition more specific because with what you have you could have beastmaster or puppetmaster be in vague theme of summoner depending on how you built it, Shaman in WoW is a summoner because he draws totems and uses magic (assuming to meet your creature definition we write the totems are alive in lore somewhere), no that is way too generic of a definition that fits just about anything if you wiggle it, summoner of the FF series is definitely not just a job that calls some random small stuff to do things- it's a job of calling forth incredible beings (almost exclusively otherworldly) that give treats of gravitas and absurdity (how and what they do being only vaguely consistent, how they are presented is the most consistent part of being a summon). That I'm saying this because a key part of their definition is not in your definition, that you can't have that vague of a definition if you wanted to successfully and consistently recreate their image, obviously as you can see from every other FF game in the series- this grand, extra, image is very consistent and therefore absolutely part of their job visual design (at the start of SMN's life in ARR pretty much any other MMO out there with a magical pet/evoking job had way more oomph, which was nearly a crime to FF summoners because that's been their thing since ever- but they've obviously corrected that since then and FFXIV's magical pet/evoking job is holding it's own a lot better and leading in some ways).

Would be like black mage but all the spells are tiny and barely explode, no one would be happy with that (very clearly as progression the black mage is meant to be making impressive moves, it's a core part of the identity- visual theme). I only nitpick this much because you're talking to someone who felt they didn't go far enough (mechanically) and you're using a very wiggle-able definition, one with so much wiggle room that it could produce ARR's summoner (or other weird things like a shaman from WoW) and I thought ARR's egi only summons and non-primal combat focus was a 'disservice' to the image of being a 'FF' summoner (disservice seems to be the word in trend, I don't think I used that word back then but just for cadence I used it there lol). Something that I had argued fairly strongly about back when SMN was fresh, and I feel, even if coincidentally, quite listened to (and hence why I often defend that SE does actually listen and take feedback and thank them for when I can notice). Demi makes it a lot better, and I quite like the assaults concept, hence I frequently thank them for, and which is why I keep adding I think they've brought the job in the right direction and should maintain this direction hard, and harder if possible, perhaps even taking those notes of change earlier (without huge retcons at least).

Like moogles have a visual theme, it varies slightly, but if someone called chocobos moogles and moogles cactuars that'd just be nonsense. Summoners have a visual theme, that is easy to detail just by looking at them in their context of their own game and in comparison to others with them in it- it's the most consistent part of them (said a few times will say a few more times, as if you're going to find the identity to something and little elements change here and there but one stays the same you can call it the defining feature as it becomes the through line concept between each iteration, grandness is part of that).

In terms of systems (mechanic's not visual focus) of other games for Summoner you have to parse out jobs, job menus, and jobless games. In every game that has job system of summoner it pretty much exclusively relates to summons, well except FFXIV lol. In this way FFXIV might be seen by some as a diluted vision of Summoner. In games that have jobless situations but have the summoner action it's almost always either under the summon menu in battle or at least made available through unique summoning items/actions (like materia dedicated to summons), in this case FFXIV's summoner may be seen a big negatively but the situation is quite a bit more vague. Of course to note one of the biggest well known summoners of the entire FF series (Yuna), is definitely known for both her curative magic and summoning and she is frequently referred to as a summoner (as she is). Though you could say that's mixing job title with other activities, like an engineer may also be a volunteer fire fighter- that doesn't mean being an engineer has anything to do with being a fire fighter. So I think this is where Mirron focuses on, pretty much in all occasions the massive focus of something called summoner should be on summon actions. This is something back in ARR, beyond just visuals, that I had also really wished for SE to work on- and while maybe not as much as I'd like, and that's fair since they've lots of resources to spread (and people who liked previous mechanics, so they try to maintain that relationship and add elements), it's certainly a lot more and bigger too. So in both ways they've improved the job in a way I had really wanted, I thank them for that- besides I didn't dislike the ARR mechanics as much as I felt it missed the identity mechanically (well and visually).

Anyway I wanted to disagree (perhaps some extent to MirronTulaxia as well, if they are suggesting just about any sort of summoning no matter what it looks like is 'ff summoner' as there has been an element so consistent that is core to the identity of being a summoner (like using blue magic spells must look like monster spells)), that there is a 'visual' component to FF summoner, a component that while maybe needing to be dampened for MMO games doesn't need to be neglected (as other MMOs shown, as FF shows themselves via FFXI and their Demi), and it's not like as you are suggesting blue mage can be eastern or western / can be whatever visually so it doesn't matter (even though it does if we're talking actual spell effects, which is the only core of that job, there is no core on other parts as it's been inconsistent there, that job has to have monster spells as visualized by the monsters is the visual core that can't change without seriously gambling the job's thematic identity)- that because you made one example of inconsistency so therefore Summoner can be whatever too. Perhaps you weren't trying to make that comparison, honestly I think you weren't, but I read it as such potential and if you were then no- for summoner there is a visual component that has been in every single FF game (all summons have had what I would I guess lazily and quickly call "impact" or "grand presence" both in summon and summon effect). There is a visual aesthetic to summoner, that is absolutely key description to the job. You may have aesthetic changes for blue mage but it's rather irrelevant for that job when the only key has been monster spells.

Which isn't to say I'm condemning ShB's summoner- I'm not and I wouldn't because I think they've found the right train tracks and just need to keep riding them (each expansion they emphasize the primal and the grand). I've complemented and thanked SE multiple times for changing direction (each expansion no less) away from just egis and it's majority non-primal related actions. That they move into more primal related and more oomph attack content (as I've asked for both mechanical and visual changes), as the job has changed a lot since ARR in terms of visual and mechanical focus. Just keep adding more primal related stuff wherever possible, it's why I say I cheer them on now as I think they've got it and will take it to great places (unlike when I was really worried in ARR wondering how they could have so little of it relate to primals and also make WoW's Warlock have more bang than their most 'bangin' job class in all of the the entire series (SMN)- just didn't seem right at all, but that's not really true anymore ~! <3 ).

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Originally Posted by Exodus-E

Ah, now I see your point(s).

Apologies for earlier, but whenever people complain about SMN not being "true to past FF games", they usually refer to the Egis themselves (instead of anything else).

With that out of the way:

So that's what you meant all along.

Yes, while it's true that most of its toolkit doesn't involve its summons, I'd argue that from Stormblood on-wards they (slowly) started taking steps in the right direction.
With the introduction of Aetherpact -> Devotion or the altered Egi Assaults, for instance.

So I'd say it's just a matter of time before SMN becomes far more involved with them.

Still, the job itself should be able to defend itself (to complement its summons), so at minimum, those Ruin-related spells should stay.

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It's fine. I didn't clarify as stringently as I should have.

As far as ShB representing it more... I don't feel I really agree. Like, I have a vague idea of what a Summoner could do without being a pet class that still feels like it's summoning and such, but the Arcanist with some transformations we currently have is not really it.

I felt like i should clarify a bit cause its been bugging me . What i said engineer i meant a computer one not a mechanical one bio and miasma isnt related to garlean technology nor is it poison cause in ff14 there is no such thing as poison magic. for example malboros bad breath is water and earth atributed. To go into every little detail i have managed to find. Healing is basicly repairing since aether carries information of the being it stems from which is why we can repair stuff without having to call upon the elementals for it something that to whm is buffling . in the whm lore its regarded as suicidal , astros call upon the power of the stars and constellations corresponding to the 12. Ruins are supposedely the most basic of function you can create its the hello world of attacks its the unaspected form of every elemental attack in the game which is why it had so many variations , that been said i think im partialy wrong about this for the simple reason that ruination as a magic hasnt had as much explaining . You only see arcanima only in one place outside of sch/smn/acn lore and that is the ascians. every single one of them is an arcanist but they can also wield elemental attacks cause of how much stronger than us they are ill be back to this when i explain egi and demis. Bio and miasma as i said are not poison magic since there is no such thing, what miasma does is inject your aether into the enemy to constrict theirs which causes the lungs to collapase. i know this from 3 sources:
first the tooltip of the debuff says straight up lungs collapsing
second the lore of black rose which tells you how its victims die
and third thancreds condition that allows him to restrict his own aether
Bio says contagions are spreading. which tells me fck all and i have never seen any mention as to how it relates to arcanima hopefully theyll give some lore piece like they did to this expansion with miasma
Lastly the demis egis and carbuncles the crescento of arcanima magic constructing a familiar from the information you get from a piece of aether. this is the same thing we do with healing. carbuncle has as a medium gems not crystals emerald being wind topaz earth ruby fire , what also needs to be mentioned is that they are linked to your aether this is why when tataru became an arcanist and she got scared the carbuncle left her "a ps here everything explained below needs to be done by the smn without fear or slip up else he will have to start over or straight up fail lore wise keep that in mind"

. and from this we come to where summoner branching begins we find out that we can summon primals the same way we summon carbuncles by using a piece of their aether to replicate them only instead of gems we use the primals aether fast forward a bit and we learn that to have those 3 egis we need to constantly have their aether stored . after pondering awhile getting more efficent with the basics learning painflare tridisaster and shadowflare respectively an explosion of aether a more efficent yet costly way to cast our prior jamming aether and something that they could have bothered explain instead of turning it into the worst pet ability to ever exist . were about to delete our 1 terra homework folder when our mentor tells us hey i found a way to bypass the restriction of summoning only 3 primals trance . trance is basicly a way to transmute the aether we spent and use that to trasform into a state that allows us to gather even more aether . basicly since we cant summon to do more austerities we have to replicate it and then use it to gain its powers then shadowbringers came in with the complaints 30 seconds of my life are too long and threw it out of the window. after "studying" a bit more for awhile our mentor comes upon a book that was willing to teach us an important lesson we can use the trance aether we spend to transmute that to do a demi summon. after 10 levels of tease we finally get demi bahamut. This is our summoning slow but efficient and doesnt harm the earth instead of what those ascians fellows were doing . Then shadowbringers comes in and drops the bomb you dont need a medium to create something with arcanima you can do whatever you like the reason we cant and the reason the summons harm the world is cause we dont have enough aether. you can replicate any spell and kind of an effect as long as you have aether . no need for elementals no need for 12 no need for nothing and this links back to what zenos did when he got the "echo" he could become one with the summon. This whole thing started by arcanima this is why all these remove dots they dont feel summoner like are infuriating to me. what summoner is doing is summoning what summoner is however is so much more than that its a branch of something much bigger he doesnt just summon he literally creates he destroys he repairs he controls and this is just one branch imagine what SCH who branches out into a different kind of familiar could reveal if given the time and effort smn and acn had . THIS is why sch /acn /smn dont have an identity crisis and THIS is why what shadowbringers did to aetherflow chain, something that also removed the highest risk highest reward gameplay, was the worst mistake they could have done. If after all this i have not managed to change anyones mind then im sorry , i will strongly disagree on every kind of cheapening of this job for the sake of fanciness . THIS is summoner and im out.


PS i had to write this shit twice cause my phone refreshed the page

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Originally Posted by HeulGDarian

PS i had to write twice cause my phone refreshed the page

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Totally intend to read the rest of it later mate but just wanted to share a neat tip as I've experienced phone issues too lol. If you request desktop page, usually in the settings (top right option section usually) in your mobile browser, then you can get access to edit and such like on your normal computer. Can help sometimes. :)

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Originally Posted by HeulGDarian

I felt like i should clarify a bit cause its been bugging me . What i said engineer i meant a computer one not a mechanical one bio and miasma isnt related to garlean technology nor is it poison cause in ff14 there is no such thing as poison magic. for example malboros bad breath is water and earth atributed. To go into every little detail i have managed to find. Healing is basicly repairing since aether carries information of the being it stems from which is why we can repair stuff without having to call upon the elementals for it something that to whm is buffling . in the whm lore its regarded as suicidal , astros call upon the power of the stars and constellations corresponding to the 12. Ruins are supposedely the most basic of function you can create its the hello world of attacks its the unaspected form of every elemental attack in the game which is why it had so many variations , that been said i think im partialy wrong about this for the simple reason that ruination as a magic hasnt had as much explaining . You only see arcanima only in one place outside of sch/smn/acn lore and that is the ascians. every single one of them is an arcanist but they can also wield elemental attacks cause of how much stronger than us they are ill be back to this when i explain egi and demis. Bio and miasma as i said are not poison magic since there is no such thing, what miasma does is inject your aether into the enemy to constrict theirs which causes the lungs to collapase. i know this from 3 sources:
first the tooltip of the debuff says straight up lungs collapsing
second the lore of black rose which tells you how its victims die
and third thancreds condition that allows him to restrict his own aether
Bio says contagions are spreading. which tells me i have never seen any mention as to how it relates to arcanima hopefully theyll give some lore piece like they did to this expansion with miasma
Lastly the demis egis and carbuncles the crescento of arcanima magic constructing a familiar from the information you get from a piece of aether. this is the same thing we do with healing. carbuncle has as a medium gems not crystals emerald being wind topaz earth ruby fire , what also needs to be mentioned is that they are linked to your aether this is why when tataru became an arcanist and she got scared the carbuncle left her "a ps here everything explained below needs to be done by the smn without fear or slip up else he will have to start over or straight up fail lore wise keep that in mind"

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Originally Posted by HeulGDarian

. and from this we come to where summoner branching begins we find out that we can summon primals the same way we summon carbuncles by using a piece of their aether to replicate them only instead of gems we use the primals aether fast forward a bit and we learn that to have those 3 egis we need to constantly have their aether stored . after pondering awhile getting more efficent with the basics learning painflare tridisaster and shadowflare respectively an explosion of aether a more efficent yet costly way to cast our prior jamming aether and something that they could have bothered explain instead of turning it into the worst pet ability to ever exist . were about to delete our 1 terra homework folder when our mentor tells us hey i found a way to bypass the restriction of summoning only 3 primals trance . trance is basicly a way to transmute the aether we spent and use that to trasform into a state that allows us to gather even more aether . basicly since we cant summon to do more austerities we have to replicate it and then use it to gain its powers then shadowbringers came in with the complaints 30 seconds of my life are too long and threw it out of the window. after "studying" a bit more for awhile our mentor comes upon a book that was willing to teach us an important lesson we can use the trance aether we spend to transmute that to do a demi summon. after 10 levels of tease we finally get demi bahamut. This is our summoning slow but efficient and doesnt harm the earth instead of what those ascians fellows were doing . Then shadowbringers comes in and drops the bomb you dont need a medium to create something with arcanima you can do whatever you like the reason we cant and the reason the summons harm the world is cause we dont have enough aether. you can replicate any spell and kind of an effect as long as you have aether . no need for elementals no need for 12 no need for nothing and this links back to what zenos did when he got the "echo" he could become one with the summon. This whole thing started by arcanima this is why all these remove dots they dont feel summoner like are infuriating to me. what summoner is doing is summoning what summoner is however is so much more than that its a branch of something much bigger he doesnt just summon he literally creates he destroys he repairs he controls and this is just one branch imagine what SCH who branches out into a different kind of familiar could reveal if given the time and effort smn and acn had . THIS is why sch /acn /smn dont have an identity crisis and THIS is why what shadowbringers did to aetherflow chain, something that also removed the highest risk highest reward gameplay, was the worst mistake they could have done. If after all this i have not managed to change anyones mind then im sorry , i will strongly disagree on every kind of cheapening of this job for the sake of fanciness . THIS is summoner and im out.


PS i had to write this twice cause my phone refreshed the page

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What I'm reading in a sort of summary, where the values of certain things listed may be much higher or lower depending on preference but exist in some format, correct me if I'm far off, is an appreciation of the connection the job has with the world of the game, the semi-unusual/unique aspect of being a job of science (engineer, the general field, like), and the progression of the job (until some recent expansions changed that up) which took it's historical growth and added to it rather than changing it all up unlike now more recently has started to buck it's history for it's future and you don't really like that it's tossing out some of it's history. That the job had a feeling of slow burn and logical story telling non-destructive progression of it's mechanics (which I think seems to be your focus, of the mechanics and how it relates to it's development story wise).

Just to add for context back in ARR SMN, and I'm not saying SE did this because I suggested it because these things can be coincidences, but I had personally said (long before demi/ahk morn content- right at the release of SMN) an idea of using the architecture of SMN's aetherflows to build into a trance state of being able to summon much more classic FF entities (that are not the actual thing due to lore). In over many, not necessarily one big post, posts I had detailed battery mechanics that included using aether stack build usage, leftover elements in the air (like Bahamut's), and a cycle that rested upon the smaller cycle to build SMN to a state where it could cast higher state egis (basically what demis are- never used the word demi but almost exactly had described a system that came to exist, though to be fair I also described like 10 other options in non-stop idea vomiting as I was quite frustrated and wanted to prove that SE didn't have to kill the lore and still could make changes).

Now going back to discussing old SMNs in two parts of art and then mechanics:

I never thought the mechanics or lore were bad in the sense of it being a job of it's own, new to the series sort of stance- like if we had just called it Arcanist the whole time and never tied it to Summoner of the FF series (as a job based identity game that FFXIV is). Arcanist would have been pretty cool. However, as a Summoner (of the FF series, not just the generic terminology) I felt they had missed the identity in a severe way. If you look at all the other FF Summoners there is absolutely a visual aesthetic to what it 'does', it's not just some random creatures like you can summon a bunch of imps exclusively and that's 'what summoner, for FF, in a nut shell' it's clearly not. To suggest there isn't an visual consistent aesthetic I would say is verging on if not actually intellectual dishonesty.. You may say that the egi are actually grand or are regal (strongly disagree) but to say there isn't a visual aesthetic of what they appear of and how they do it is.. well that'd be just wrong. Like a ranger isn't a black mage even though in the FF series both can hit really hard. And a ranger doesn't simply shoot stuff, because black mage does that too, a ranger shoots stuff with a bow or at least other ranged projectile physical based weapons (sometimes jobs have multiple potential equipment choices)- that visual (and mechanical) aspect is required to make ranger. Summoning isn't simply calling some creatures to do stuff, as demonstrated by FF (the word itself as a definition is obviously more general, but when we talk Dragoon I'm clearly not talking about the British army or the other video game Legend of the Dragoon). There is the allowed subjective nature of art but there is still a consistency of words to describe differences, like those games of spot the difference you do as children- if you put all the FF summons together you'd not spot much difference (expect graphical age) and if anything you'd spot the similarities first; however, you add FFXIV's ARR variant and you'd be like "yeah something happened, this one is different- I can vaguely a see relationship it but this one is the most different clearly compared to the others- the others are visually power incarnate and this one is mellow and whimsical".

I know you weren't talking about the art side of things that much but it really bothers me when people play word salad and or act like art doesn't matter or it was all the same. To be clear it's not something I'm accusing Exodus-E of either, as I've not talked to them long enough to know (could just be their preferential bias/don't care about recreating Summoner too consistently and would like higher variance, maybe they don't bother so much with art and find mechanics to be worth far more, etc), but it is absolutely something I experienced when talking about Summoner in the early ARR days, lots of ignoring history of the job or pretending visuals don't matter in a game series/company famous for caring about their visuals, or redefining word play shuffling to defend the job as it was. Most often because they liked the lore as it was (found it different) or felt the lore to be untouchable which I experience quite a bit (there is a certain very conservative reverence you might find of the lore some people have, where it's impossibly untouchable except for when SE touches it), but I've no qualm about acanist's lore (or mechanics, both were fine)- only SMN's image and history. Not about arcanist or if arcanist was interesting, it's about summoner and particularly FF's summoner which isn't a generic caller of somethings or even just magical things, it call's grand beings, just like all the other FF including FFXI). There was also often being accused of things I had never said- at one point it become popular to say people wanted size for size primal, like the screen filling ifrit but for every summoner- which I had never said, and regularly said things against like scaling them down so it doesn't ruin gameplay (as a 1:1 would have), but still keeping them grand. At one point I had to quote every single post I had made in a thread to prove what was suggested I said never actually happened lol, the hand waiving of their basically only consistency (caller of grand things) and generation of disinformation was really something back then. Anyway, art clearly matters as they spend massive parts of the budget of games on it, that they've got people paid just to organize a consistent style (art directors who have a very important job), and while it might not matter equally to everyone (some play dwarf fortress without any graphic mods, only text based games, wouldn't care of it looked good or not, that's their choice) in general it does matter (not talking quality like 4k, but what it says, like how you can generally tell what class any jobless FF character is by how the designer designed them- because they made the art speak to you). I feel like these discussions tend to get really... manipulative I guess is the best word. Which may be way I come in like a bulldozer..? Past frustrations perhaps making me feel like WOAH WOAH HOL' UP. Like it's okay it not be an element that matters to someone personally, but it feels quite silly when in discussion of FF and particularly FFXIV to see it like as if art and the narratives it tells doesn't matter as a whole, that there wasn't a consistency of what Summoner did- that there isn't a visual narrative that does and has existed. Maybe in other words, very regularly top three reason why FFXIV is touted better than WoW is people like the art style more. Which all of that wall and above is to say art direction and narrative is relevant and you can't just describe a complete narrative through basic mechanics and it be that, the art is also part of that theme, that also changes in expectation can be amazing but also can be .. totally not.. lol which I'll mention again later.

Now onto the mechanics and I think where we more lock heads a bit. In all the games that have SMN as a job the job focuses explicitly on summons, so in this way the expectation that a summoner should pretty much spend all their time summoning is pretty standard. FFXIV is indeed a job based game too, not like say FFX or other games where the job system is more vague (like what job is Vincent? Well you can kind of name a few but he's not just one clearly). So I hope you can agree with me that there is difference between past expectation and current, even if you think this version is better (that slow burn to get to summoner vs all the other ones where you get right at it). Carried onto that is that those past jobs whether they be job based or non-job based get right to the 'good stuff' too, there is no significant build up to wow like most other jobs where you start with fire I to get to Ultima and other cray cray spells. If anything Summoner follows the opposite trend of getting to big stuff early and then not evolving too much beyond that, just constantly pretty damn big- where some other jobs might reach "OH MY GOD WHAT THE HECK" for one spell but for the most part ride below Summoner (and also the powerlevel of summoner tends to start out crazy and end up being just okay by the end).

Again you may feel this is done better in FFXIV, but I hope you can agree that both the art and the build up / mechanical focus are not -standard- interpretations of "FF's" summoners (subverting standard expectations isn't always bad, and it can be good or bad depending, but I hope you allow me that I didn't appreciate it and so I viewed it as bad lol). The word is generic in that you can argue well in WoW the warlock is a summoner, and yeah sure they summon stuff- but clearly FF's idea of what a summoner is, what a dragoon is, is not what the rest of the world calls it- so we shouldn't take it through a generic lens, and FF has a long history to reference, it's not like one game to go by, a game series that likes to do call backs to itself with slight variations (like blue mage always uses monster spells and monster visuals, but maybe the rest of the job is who knows).

Finally you do get to the idea of subverting expectation and trying to do something new with something old, while not changing it too much. Which is important to do, else things get stale or just memes like EA sports/fps game version 3009, exactly like the one in 2001 with better graphics and more loot boxes- hype! This is where you get things like blue mage changing it's history, and it works, but you don't see blue mage suddenly not use monster spells lol. This is why I brought up the samurai example, if FFXIV's samurai used shields only rather than katana's, and they made this wonderful lore for it, even if it looked cool, you could at least 'see' how some people might be annoyed right? That changing something so core about it, away from even bows and spears, forgetting katanas for a second, that would just be like "what are you doing...? WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?". That like lets make a more fun example, SE releases a very realistic FF20 where there is no magic, but they have what they call a black mage which is basically like a battle alchemist that throws different sorts of bombs (showering the enemy in fire and other effects)- because the rest of the game lines up with this vision.. you know that might actually pass for most people who buy into the game theme as a whole (wouldn't you say? maybe not everyone wanted a hyper realistic FF but... it could work if the whole game them'd that yeah?). Now lets go back to Summoner, talking about the art vision for a moment, all the other jobs basically go ham, black mage for example, Yoshida's favorite job, is basically big boom explosion city, there is nothing super grounded about it as it drops near screen filling magic on the regular, so there is clearly in the general sense of the game world no limit on magical power- and then suddenly we come in with this job that's like OH BUT FOR YOU WE HAVE LORE THAT CHAINS YOU UP... It no longer feels good, okay so we can have incrediboom for all the jobs but the job that is MOST known for excess in summoning visually insane other worldly beings to do visually insane things? No thank you. So to complete my example of the black mage that is actually a battle alchemist, put that battle alchemist in a world where you've super insane summoners, full holy magic healers, dark knights using dark magic, and then suddenly the black mage idea that might have worked feels like "why.. did you do this..? why did you chain the job up when you've not done so else where? you've made it less cool in a setting that doesn't even actually need that" (like demi shows the lore didn't need to chain summoner).

Although I'm fairly the real reason was because originally Yoshida wanted to have open battle field Free Company primal summoning, and he also really enjoys doing things a bit different (which like I said subverting expectations isn't always bad), as he has also called himself a contrarian (and the lore existed to help back that up for later, as he has said himself gameplay is first lore follows (vague reinterpretation, he didn't say it exactly like that).

Now of course the less cool part is subjective, since some people would probably still think battle alchemist is pretty neat even in that setting lol, but you can at least "see" where someone might come from right? There is a subversion of expectation but it's not even consistent and can easily be seen as a negative to those who had an expectation of at least "semi-greatness". That this job has had a proven history of being absurd and a demonstrated relationship between the dialog (menu / item choices) / job title of summoner and using explicitly summoning content, shown by all of it's history and one of the only consistent things about it (mechanics of what the summons did precisely shift lightly, sometimes greatly, the visuals and relationship to the title of the FF series however had not until early FFXIV- like shifting ranger away from bow into throwing spears.. could be cool, could just be "what in the world did you do that for?"). Subverting expectation can be important and cane make some really interesting things, like maybe I just said a spear based range class and someone in the back started paying attention- "oh.. yes? I love that, why don't we have more spear throwing?" "where are my engineer jobs?" "not all jobs need to start out so obnoxious, how about a slow burn SMN?" etc).. But at least I hope you understand where someone can be frustrated, that FFXIV's summoner, in ARR, did not follow the only things really consistent about being a summoner, which was consistently about summoning great beings to do great things, and more than a soft focus on summoning or a generic focus on calling any sort of creature (else we could say FFXI's beastmaster when using jugs is equally a summoner, and that's silly). It was and has since inception a hard focus on summoning content and a hard focus on a particular visual aesthetic, something they've definitely done past ARR which is why I keep mentioning it as I don't want my post to read like I'm against what they've done since ARR as I feel they've worked both parts that are the only parts that have consistently made SMN SMN (like only part that makes Blue Mage is monster spells, core themes to their job identity). Though I do feel it was unfortunate they hadn't started that way from the beginning, I feel SMN would potentially have been able to use the past resources to greater effect then (perhaps we'd have our glamour system or more primal choices by now- instead of having to keep changing mechanics). Also want to make this point that experimenting with the identity of SMN in teh situation of a job based game is probably not a great place since the title of the job makes the expectations, you don't call something a black mage and make it a warrior-- BUT in a game where job titles are far looser (like the FF that don't have standard jobs, FFIX/X, etc) you'd be forgiven playing with the identities a lot more since it's not as clear a thing to pick to be what you picked (no job system, no title to describe the entire character in one word that paints a consistent mechanical and visual image).

Anyway, I can see why you like Arcanist (which I'll refer ARR variant of SMN under too since I felt it really missed the mark thematically) and if you tell me you liked the idea of SMN having a slower burn / more grounded approach I'll believe you too and I can imagine why (like black mage being a battle alchemist in a very grounded no magic setting would be fine with me, but not fine if we had magic else where for other jobs), but I will counter with that there has been both an aesthetic and mechanical consistency since the beginning and both of which were neglected for the first version of SMN and that while we may disagree on what the best SMN should be now that least we can both see that you liked what was not the standard interpretation, a subversion of expectations if you will (which isn't always bad, but can definitely be that way- like if you might feel if blue mages did not use monster spells even if the lore was pretty good), and I liked clearly the more classical variant and expected great feats from it because of it's history even if it wasn't and shouldn't have been replace your party level theatrics because that'd be just silly lol (nor that it didn't have to break lore to be that way, as proven with demi).

I don't think we'll agree on what to do with SMN but maybe we definitely see each other eye to eye? I think I get it, where you're coming from. I don't think what you like for why you liked it is bad (like if I like a certain flavor of ice cream you don't like, sure whatever right?), I didn't even mind Arcanist as it's own identity, it's own job to be it's own thing, just that I think it subverts the identity of Summoner too much in a way that I don't really care for and while admitting that sometimes subversion can be nice but in this case I don't think it was especially as it was tweaking with the core when the rest of the jobs in the game didn't (blue mage uses monsters, subverting their history for east / west doesn't tweak it's core). I don't really care for it being slow burn or more calm down when I have hyper obnoxious hecta penta super triple ultra flare black mage standing right next to me, that doesn't mean you have to agree with me though, of course lol. :)

There is only one thing we massively disagree on. and thats that summoner is as convulted as a samurai with a shield or a blm that is in fact using bombs. The system is still a magic system even if he is using aether lke someone in reallife would use circuit it doesnt make it be any less than a man with a book drawing circles for stuff to appear out of nowhere, just because it bears resemblance it doesnt mean it isnt still a magic system. This is the most subjective thing ever and something you cant judge a job upon, to prove my point every single person i met has a different idea on what is wrong with summoner and how to fix it. ive heard till now:
remove egis
rework egis
make egis stance
remove dots
make dots elemental
bring back dots
bring back heavensward trance
rework fester painflare
remove fester painflare
make fester painflare a summon
make fester painflare elemental
fix demis
rework to only demis
give more demis
dont give more demis
remove aetherflow
bring back aetherflow
change aetherflow
remove ruins
rework ruins
make it like yuna
make it yuna nt
make it like ff7 to equip summons
add every summon
Every single person has its own ideas on what summoner needs, and so they fight and post that they are right and that others are wrong and that they are correct and that we should remove that group into another job and that they only say that cause identity crisis and and and and..... EXCUSES in the end everyone has different reasons to like this smn because summoner is a succesfull and popular job. its not without fault but it most definitely doesnt suffer from an identity crisis everyone just likes a different part or parts of it. and yes i understand that you can say that all this infighting does mean it indeed suffers from identity crisis. and my reply to this is how do you pick a group on it. sure you can categorise them and then see who is the m... just pick demis i can hear it from a mile away. So lets say that they at some point they make a bigger better summon even more fun to use than a demi and bahamut and lets say pheonix shows power creep (bahamut already shows powercreep by pheonix) do we then start this again?
I am tired of arguing in the forums. because the above thing has no true answer. Also something i need to say because this connects to the latest rework rework fiesta. MCH didnt get fixed after the rework, people still have the same issues all it did was to make it more popular to people who like jobs on the easier side.


To me this job did something smn needed for a long time it expanded the possible things a smn can do. Its a change and some peope adapt better to it than others. The reason im saying it needed them was because in 3 and 5 where summoning was alone it was outclassed by every other mage. It had some summons but besides the unique summons the non elemental ones buffers etc they were mediocre compared to comet meteor dualcast flare heck even holy. 6 had the best summon roster cause of all the buffs fenrir springs to mind. What im trying to get to is that the slowburner isnt cause of the summoner basic spells its cause the egis arent flashy or exciting to use. The egis need to be different than the demi gameplay and be weaker thats the only requirement oh and enkindle stays at 50 for obvious reasons if they make their gameplay better then the slow ramp up will be gone , if they are removed however then it will only become slower for the simple reason that smn is the most fun when everything you got is tied together. you could argue all day that summoner needs to be flashy exciting with cool animations and id argue back how smn should be about the moment to moment choice picking the right summon for the occasion supporting their team while trying not to die methodical.


besides that i have no problems you got your opinion i got mine . And SE will propably ignore both add another demi and wont fix any issues ai has or ones that they caused

To be fair for identity I said as long as they do more primal stuff and keep up with the grand elements then they are good lol (so I'm pretty loose on how they do that, I liked ShB but it doesn't have to be that specific way), but you are right there 9000 ways to do summoner posted lol. So while I may want SMN to change a certain way their identity, now that we have demi, isn't in some sort of great crisis. At ARR before the trance and demi though I would totally argue it was.

So my desires for any changes, at this point, post demi, post trance, are now just personal over crisis arguments. Maybe if not clear to you then it is now ;)

I was bringing up old ARR and visuals because it's where the job came from, and also visuals was mentioned in another post.

Also to note the black mage example was used to show how subversion could go really smoothly or not, I agree a battle alchemist black mage is a farther. As egi were vaguely in shape of primals, just no where near the very consistent core splendor all the other summoners had.

If I was making a more direct comparison I'd say something like.... John (random name chosen for example) is a king (grand visuals) and how he has always been a king in every game, then suddenly FFXIV makes him a commoner (egi). When every version of John, and his core role/identity built around it, but one was a king you can't tell me it wasn't part of it's identity and that being a commoner is totally inline- that change is a subversion (some may like it, in this instance I didn't though lol- post ARR SMN has the grand (king) elements via demi and trance stuff though).

In your argument for variety to add better combat viability I totally hear that, though you can argue how best to do that (like you show, personally I imagine dissida yuna but as you said everyone has an argument on how to do that).

you know what im gonna go ahead and say whats in everyone minds.

I love demis

they are really fun they are more active and they make everyone praise them for it. Im gonna go ahead and say another thing.
Egis are boring they arent active they just auto attack and they are not as cool as demis.

Imo all this complaining would simply stop if the egis were more engaging. which is something that i assume nobody is against to happening. So how would you make egis more engaging but at the same time weaker than demis and not an exact copy pasted gameplay mech?

im gonna say my idea which id like to believe its not preposterous to happening.

Firstly id put devotion down to level 50 along with enkindle. The reason is that id love that devotion worked like enkindle different for every summon.
Secondly id like that egis instead of doing just autos they did combos. As in he has the first auto attack then his second auto attack is clasified as a different ability and the third did a finisher one.
thirdly since egis are something that a summoner keeps out 100% of the time they need to have healthbars and aggro something that i can depend on if i sleep on the wheel.
fourthly id opt to have their abilities be as they were before off any kind of cooldown ,completely independent and something that you could have on auto pilot or use yourself.
and fifth i dont know how exactly they could do this but make the egis give you a self buff . like the titan shield but a titan shield wouldnt fit being in this old version but a bit updated of egis. could be just transform an ogcd in comparison to demis who transform gcds or something but i pretty sure that would be impossible.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

To be fair for identity I said as long as they do more primal stuff and keep up with the grand elements then they are good lol (so I'm pretty loose on how they do that, I liked ShB but it doesn't have to be that specific way), but you are right there 9000 ways to do summoner posted lol. So while I may want SMN to change a certain way their identity, now that we have demi, isn't in some sort of great crisis. At ARR before the trance and demi though I would totally argue it was.


So my desires for any changes, at this point, post demi, post trance, are now just personal over crisis arguments. Maybe if not clear to you then it is now ;)


I was bringing up old ARR and visuals because it's where the job came from, and also visuals was mentioned in another post.



Also to note the black mage example was used to show how subversion could go really smoothly or not, I agree a battle alchemist black mage is not as far a subversion as FFXIV ARR SMN. As egi were vaguely in shape of primals, just no where near the very consistent core splendor all the other summoners had.



If I was making a more direct comparison I'd say something like.... John (random name chosen for example) is a king (grand visuals) and how he has always been a king in every game, then suddenly FFXIV makes him a commoner (egi). When every version of John, and his core role/identity built around it, but one was a king you can't tell me it wasn't part of it's identity and that being a commoner is totally inline- that change is a subversion (some may like it, in this instance I didn't though lol- post ARR SMN has the grand (king) elements via demi and trance stuff though).


In your arugment for variety to add better combat viability I totally hear that, though you can argue how best to do that (like you show, personally I imagine dissida yuna but as you said everyone has an argument on how to do that).

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You said king and i remembered i want my aoe king title back :C. yoshi p pls remove all the 50% downgrades TT . Overal i think we reached a point where everything that could be said has been said. I wrote the how to improve egis imo comment before the forums loaded in your comment. I do hope that people answer the question i set to that comment or maybe i should make a thread about it cause i think, the egis could really improve the job to a point that most People Will be happy and it could also bring more freshmen in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by "HeulGDarian

Every single person has its own ideas on what summoner needs, and so they fight and post that they are right and that others are wrong and that they are correct

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So true. But everyone has a different idea of what's right or fun and you'll never make everyone happy, just a fact of life. The best we can do when it comes to giving feedback is agree on a problem and let the devs figure out how to fix it. Coming up with ideas can be fun but it's not like they're going to be made reality.

The most popular idea I've seen though seems to be one where every spell is related to a summon in some way, even if everything else is kept the same. I could get behind that, the whole dot package feels out of place now. Overall I'm happy with where SMN is though, I'd say changes to the job would be very low priority. I have gotten bored with it over the course of ShB but everything gets stale with time, no big deal.

Quote:

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So how would you make egis more engaging but at the same time weaker than demis and not an exact copy pasted gameplay mech?

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I had that same thought in some other SMN thread a while back. My idea was to make them something in between demis and egis, on about a 1m cd and lasting 30s with a loadout system where you pick 3 or 4 out of 9 or so to have on your bars and cycle through, then you could have synergies between them and utility summons that would get used more often and more niche abilities to play with, like maybe there's one that attacks exactly two enemies for example. So you'd still always have one out but with more variety and interaction. Could be a pita at times though.

That’s definitely an important aspect of my point. It’s not that Summoner is fun or unfun, it’s just not a Summoner really. I’d be fine with the job remaining and them just renaming it (Probably should be Arcanist as it reminds me of the Ivalice branch of magic) if it meant we got a proper one. But a lot of people take that as meaning that the job is bad, which is an entirely separate issue.

I would like it if more of SMN's spells were summon related, such as Outburst, Painflare and Tri-disaster being based on other primals like Shiva, Ramuh, Leviathan, etc.
You'd then have three tiers of summons: 1. Single abilities. 2. Egi's. 3. Demi's.
The only problem is that these skills would therefore need to be tied to job quests that involve attuning to those respective primal energies. Which would require rewriting past job quests and lock those skills in place prohibiting rebalancing down the line.


Another thing I'd quite like, is for the 80-90 leg to be based around the Warring Triad. These were essentially the Titan/Garuda/Ifrit of their age so there's plenty of similarities to draw on.
They could be a direct upgrade to Egi's, just as Garuda/Ifrit were to Carbuncles, and then Titan/Garuda/Ifrit could become Egi Glamours for the warring Triad.

Sephirot
Chesed: 80 ST
Force Field: 30% Max HP Shield for 30s
Fiendish Rage: 280 AoE
Ein Sof: 300 AoE + 30 DoT area

Sophia
Infusion: 50 AoE
Gnostic Rant: 180 AoE
Alon Teleos: 100 AoE + 50 DoT area
Cintamani: 400 AoE

Zurvan
Tyrfing: 120 ST
Demon Claw: 280 ST
Tail End: 280 -50% AoE
Biting Halberd: 360 cone AoE + 30 DoT

These are merely 'upgraded' versions of Titan/Garuda/Ifrit, but I'd expect they could rework them entirely with new movesets, and then retroactively adapt Titan/Garuda/Ifrit's skills to those moves.

The option to add a trait to the spells to make them primal themed would likely be easier, especially considering that the Phoenix demi has no explicit explanation

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I would like it if more of SMN's spells were summon related, such as Outburst, Painflare and Tri-disaster being based on other primals like Shiva, Ramuh, Leviathan, etc.
You'd then have three tiers of summons: 1. Single abilities. 2. Egi's. 3. Demi's.
The only problem is that these skills would therefore need to be tied to job quests that involve attuning to those respective primal energies. Which would require rewriting past job quests and lock those skills in place prohibiting rebalancing down the line.


Another thing I'd quite like, is for the 80-90 leg to be based around the Warring Triad. These were essentially the Titan/Garuda/Ifrit of their age so there's plenty of similarities to draw on.
They could be a direct upgrade to Egi's, just as Garuda/Ifrit were to Carbuncles, and then Titan/Garuda/Ifrit could become Egi Glamours for the warring Triad.

Sephirot
Chesed: 80 ST
Force Field: 30% Max HP Shield for 30s
Fiendish Rage: 280 AoE
Ein Sof: 300 AoE + 30 DoT area

Sophia
Infusion: 50 AoE
Gnostic Rant: 180 AoE
Alon Teleos: 100 AoE + 50 DoT area
Cintamani: 400 AoE

Zurvan
Tyrfing: 120 ST
Demon Claw: 280 ST
Tail End: 280 -50% AoE
Biting Halberd: 360 cone AoE + 30 DoT

These are merely 'upgraded' versions of Titan/Garuda/Ifrit, but I'd expect they could rework them entirely with new movesets, and then retroactively adapt Titan/Garuda/Ifrit's skills to those moves.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

The option to add a trait to the spells to make them primal themed would likely be easier, especially considering that the Phoenix demi has no explicit explanation

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This is my favorite concept, improving the kit without killing it for those who liked the mechanics (for those who like the Arcanist specific ability theme itself, being arcanist based, it'll be a problem of course but.. ;/). Of course smoothing and or making more compelling mechanics when possible, the job doesn't need to be frozen, but not having to be like "REDESIGN IT, DO IT AGAIN".

I really like and hope for the idea that the job could gain flavor to their spells too, like if our raise became phoenix infused in some way, or our useless (pretty much) cure becomes something useful. I would love to see the primal elements "twist" actions to be each be a bit unique, that speaks to the primal power being used. Like I might be able to guess the primal from reading the description of the spell. Like the cure could become carby inspired, since they've done heals, buffs, and shields- visually you could instantly tell of course yet also via description you'd be able to narrow down to one or a few potential primals that would do that effect (a simple cure may make you think Carby but perhaps a touch more, not just a cure with carby colors).

On Seraphor's point of egi change I think that'd be neat, as it steps up egi's power but doesn't just gut them (which keeps the job's general mechanical and progressing shape without an entire redesign), not that I would be sad if the job became purely demi like, but I think that's a far more dangerous potentially upsetting and costly move lol, plus it can act as a logical upgrade path of egi (which I would love to see lol). Keeps the lore flow in that you can't just simply whip out and easily maintain subservient primal pets but by the time you're level 80 you're also significantly more capable and stronger, so makes sense you could hold a more complicated (still not 1:1) form indefinitely (unlike demi which while not 1:1 is very close to the original, which you can only use in short sprints since they're too powerful).

Though I'd love for the egi, current or in your example, to get a bit more character than just color changes or potency increases. Even if some of that character has no function in boss content. Like Sophia might be able to temporarily enfeeble trash mobs in one of those egi assaults, does nothing in boss fights but really adds more to the character of her ability description. I went from "some aoe spell color theme'd to a primal" to suddenly being able to narrow down which primal the spell came from by description alone, even though it hardly has an effect on the end game balance (since the enfeeble wouldn't work on bosses). Of course they don't have to be generic/trash only effects like that, they could also change the balance of the spell a bit (so long as it's a positive gain)- just saying not all the tweaks that explain character of the primal need to be balance changers.

Easier said than done for some moves, like what might you do if Ramuh takes over painflare? You can easily make it look like a Ramuh AoE, and it'd look epic, like you could even take some inspiration from the FFXV Ramuh attack move, but mechanically it might be harder to make it scream Ramuh. Perhaps after the staff does it's judgement like effect (FFXV staff coming down) the staff then releases a sort of final static discharge that affects all the nearby enemies with rolling thunder (take extra damage when they make actions like attacking or casting)- the damage amount doesn't have to be extreme but that might give people enough info to guess (FFXIV's) Ramuh from description. In terms of just lightning though you might just say the spell does more damage the more enemies are in the area (three being the break point compared to single target attacks, like usual).

I like the idea that you'd have short burst primal spells (variety of normal spam and some less often here comes the boom), long term primal spells (less complicated / less stressing because you have to be able to hold it), and then short term pet variants that can only be held temporarily- this is the formula that stands already, but consuming the rest of the job with that formula would be pretty pleasing to myself (painflare -> judgement, etc). By moving the spells to be primal related you give it an extreme summoner content job focus, and all three forms of primal content basically describes the entire history of summoner (one offs, full replacements, timed replacements). So this is really personally my hope, though like I said before I'm okay with pretty much anything so long as they make sure it's more primal content specifically.

Of course you could do other things with the egi, like spur making egi almost demi temporarily (new assault effects/temporary visual change), or even weirdly like an Eden sort of moment where you combine your egi with another primal essence. Or if we were trying to bring in the other egi as content vs just a glamour we might try something like on our demi cycle- perhaps after every complete demi cycle your egi set rotates like on a coin, may relate it to some sort of elemental coin concept. Titan, Ifrit, Garuda -> Shiva (sword and shield form), Leviathan, Ramuh.

Also my suggestion for the story issue have the summoner get mini-job quests, they can explain any differences in story and even get you to visit certain primal locations, like the first egi change quest can explain how you learned a new egi type (depending on when you can bind it to things like having traveled the void between worlds has somehow let you sync to more primals at once, gaining some special aethercite you keep on hand to funnel and act as a capacitor for the unique extra energy, or your earlier collection of elemental crystals + some hydalen gift- etc, just depends on when and where).

There really is so many different things that could be done lol. Some bias, but just yeah please load the job out with way more primal influence and hopefully with abilities that feel like that primal. I get that a lot of primal differences when it came to damage was 'element X damage' in the sRPG(s) but when possible I'd love to see attempts to make the primal speak in the actual actions. As for the glamour (weeeee lol coming back to the thread's title), I honestly just want to see more primal content, if Ramuh showed up as a spell concept in the core part of the job I'd be happier than if they showed up as simply "choose your color of damage" (replace one color/egi to the exact same thing but of a different color), though that's my personal bias. Ultimately I'd take anything more related to primals over less.

I just think that the summoner needs more a change of disign of the spells rather than a redesign of the job, the egi assault are generally a good idea, but the egi assault should all be range spellf, to avoid the ifrit ghosting.
and an overhaul of the basics egis '' ifrit, garuda, titan '' with 3 new skins '' the warrior triad seems the most appropriate '' my opinion ''.

then upgrade the animation of the basic spells, ruin, fester, painflare, and the dot, to primals signature attack, without changing the effects. and of course change the name of the spells for beeing more summoner friendly.


if unfortunately in the future they would remove the egi, I would like them to transform the rotation of the summoner with almost permanent demi or it would be necessary to switch between them each time, with just a small effect proper to the demi like pheonix regen, its could also be nice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Snip.

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Alrighty then.
Since we're suggesting ideas and stuff, I may as well post a list of stuff I'd want "adjusted" (on the Egi-side of things):

1. Implement a Summoning Log command/window (similar to the Blue Magic Log, but for ACN/SMN pet "glamours").

2. Rename Egi Assault (I) and Egi Assault II to Assault (I) and Assault II respectively.

- Allow Assault (I) to be unlocked at Lv.15.
- Allow Assault II to be unlocked at Lv.30 (through Job Quest).

3. Remove Summon III.

4. Change/rename Summon (I) and Summon II to Summon Caster and Summon Melee respectively (both summon the same pet, which can be changed through the Log).

Summon Caster.
- Assault (I): Ground-based DoT.
- Assault II: AoE attack.

Summon Melee
- Assault (I): Barrier on self/party member (absorbs up to 30% HP MAX).
- Assault II: Single target attack (rushes to target).

5. If the Further Ruin trait is kept, then make it proc' by using Assault II.

6. Adjust Enkindle so it deals the same attack potency for both Summon types (no DoTs or ground DoTs).

From there, it'd be just a matter of implementing the relevant "skins", as well as their respective attacks/visual effects (Enkindle's included).

I know the egi-glams were (very) vaguely mentioned recently. Anyone know of an upcoming Q&A live letter?

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Originally Posted by OvernightSiren

I know the egi-glams were (very) vaguely mentioned recently.

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Were they?
I must have missed it. What was said?

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Were they?
I must have missed it. What was said?

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I think it was something incredibly vague like "we haven't forgotten about it and will have an update soon"

Exciting.
Maybe they'll let me glam a hat onto my carbuncle.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Exciting.
Maybe they'll let me glam a hat onto my carbuncle.

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I doubt it'll be anything like that as opposed to more colored carbuncles, etc.

Hoping to see a dev comment

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OvernightSiren

I doubt it'll be anything like that as opposed to more colored carbuncles, etc.

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Hahaha yeah, I'm not actually expecting a hat.
Being able to have carbuncle bardings would be a dream, but it's not a realistic dream.

Did they say anything about this in the live letter? I was looking for it and didn't see anything :(

Yes, dev or community manager or someone official please shed some light on this for us.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Hahaha yeah, I'm not actually expecting a hat.
Being able to have carbuncle bardings would be a dream, but it's not a realistic dream.

Did they say anything about this in the live letter? I was looking for it and didn't see anything :(

Yes, dev or community manager or someone official please shed some light on this for us.

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The glamours were brought up during the prerelease of 5.0, last I heard, so it's been about a year. They were vague, but hinted at possibly having something during 5.X. but with the pandemic I wouldn't think it's a priority at the moment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eloah

The glamours were brought up during the prerelease of 5.0, last I heard, so it's been about a year. They were vague, but hinted at possibly having something during 5.X. but with the pandemic I wouldn't think it's a priority at the moment.

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they've been promising egi glamours for so long without seeing anything, that I've stopped false hopes.

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Originally Posted by remiff

they've been promising egi glamours for so long

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About how long are we talking here?

They first promised it for 3.4 I believe.
3.4 was released in September or October 2016...

In about two months, this "promise" will have its 4th year anniversary

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NokTokPok

They first promised it for 3.4 I believe.
3.4 was released in September or October 2016...

In about two months, this "promise" will have its 4th year anniversary

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That's... like... almost half of the game's lifespan...
Oh my god...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NokTokPok

They first promised it for 3.4 I believe.
3.4 was released in September or October 2016...

In about two months, this "promise" will have its 4th year anniversary

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We...got the carby glams literally in 3.5 though. I would MUCH rather, even as a SMN main, time and money costs continue to be allocated to things making the overall gameplay experience and quality as excellent as it has been rather than a niche feature for a job that continues to see reworks and changes that make it very clear the time/cost of egi glams could be a waste depending on what happens with SMN in general.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KaerisKlyne

We...got the carby glams literally in 3.5 though. I would MUCH rather, even as a SMN main, time and money costs continue to be allocated to things making the overall gameplay experience and quality as excellent as it has been rather than a niche feature for a job that continues to see reworks and changes that make it very clear the time/cost of egi glams could be a waste depending on what happens with SMN in general.

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different divisions

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HeulGDarian

different divisions

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We're not gonna sit here and pretend that manpower doesn't get shuffled around for things to keep workflow optimal, though, and doubly so while covid is ongoing, so. Even if they weren't, it's SO clear SMN has been in a state of "what are we *really* doing with this" for a while now. If I was a business, I wouldn't put time into that until I knew for sure, either. And hey, maybe I'm wrong and we get a bunch of glams in the next expac or something, who can say! I just don't think they will, at least definitely not for the duration of this expac.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KaerisKlyne

We're not gonna sit here and pretend that manpower doesn't get shuffled around for things to keep workflow optimal, though, and doubly so while covid is ongoing, so. Even if they weren't, it's SO clear SMN has been in a state of "what are we *really* doing with this" for a while now. If I was a business, I wouldn't put time into that until I knew for sure, either. And hey, maybe I'm wrong and we get a bunch of glams in the next expac or something, who can say! I just don't think they will, at least definitely not for the duration of this expac.

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can you say that with 100% certainty? Its not like they have told us how they work besides having a strict schedule were they work both for the patches and for the future expansion.

As for the state of summoner , Current smn has some very questionable decisions, mainly how for one they didnt fix the problems, for 2 they worsened them by removing the aetherflow ,which 3 led up to even more issues mainly having the kit work against each other instead of working together.
With that out of the way they seem to have thrown all of their smn resources in making the egis better, something that is a major stress point for the job because , and here is where community input is essential, people want different things from the job. What summoners biggest problem is that people especially fans of the series let their own nostalgia get the better of them. Ive ranted about this before but unless they get some actual info and not this incoherent mess of loose terms and bad fanfics it will never ever get each own gameplay standardized.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HeulGDarian

can you say that with 100% certainty? Its not like they have told us how they work besides having a strict schedule were they work both for the patches and for the future expansion.

As for the state of summoner , Current smn has some very questionable decisions, mainly how for one they didnt fix the problems, for 2 they worsened them by removing the aetherflow ,which 3 led up to even more issues mainly having the kit work against each other instead of working together.
With that out of the way they seem to have thrown all of their smn resources in making the egis better, something that is a major stress point for the job because , and here is where community input is essential, people want different things from the job. What summoners biggest problem is that people especially fans of the series let their own nostalgia get the better of them. Ive ranted about this before but unless they get some actual info and not this incoherent mess of loose terms and bad fanfics it will never ever get each own gameplay standardized.

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All this does is prove my point that without a clear direction, egi glam resources would be wasted, so I'm going to respectfully bow out of this thread now. Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KaerisKlyne

We...got the carby glams literally in 3.5 though. I would MUCH rather, even as a SMN main, time and money costs continue to be allocated to things making the overall gameplay experience and quality as excellent as it has been rather than a niche feature for a job that continues to see reworks and changes that make it very clear the time/cost of egi glams could be a waste depending on what happens with SMN in general.

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I am with you on this one. I would also rather see them improve the job.
To be honest, I hoped that the devs would delete the egis with Shadowbringers and focus on more demi summons.
Never liked those ugly chicken nuggets.

But this isn't about that, it's about that the dev team promised to give us egi glamours and after over 3 years... nothing. And no, I don't count Carbuncles, those were already in the game. They just changed the colour for the third one.
I would rather finaly hear from them: "Yeah, sorry, not gonna happen. We changed our mind", instead of "Please keep looking forward to it."

the problem is that to remove egi, you have to completely rework the summoner except the transe system.
and if the summoner doesn't have a permanent Demi,
and more primal signature spell ''
it wouldn't really be a summoner .