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

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Originally Posted by Kevee

It's because, functionally, using Summons is 99% of the time useless. Either do to lack of damage, better damage options, long animations, have more important things to do(healing), or due to complications which arise from those(I'm looking at you, FF9).

The only time summons have actually been strong is from a lore perspective.

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The damage of them has always been fine, unless of course you are trying to compare a low end summon to a high end spell. Do I expect Ifrit, who is usually one of the earliest summons gotten, to outpace Flare or Fire 3, which are usually gotten much later? No I don't. Ifrit is usually gotten before you have access to Fire 2 or about the same time, and his attacks are usually stronger than that, often estimated to be a Fire 2.5 because of where it falls. Reason you don't use it often, is usually because at that time MP is a very finite resource unless you have done tons of grinding and then it doesn't matter anyways.You have to compare them to what you would normally have at the same time you got them, not at the end when have everything. If you want to compare a summon to a spell like Flare, it had better be a late game summon.

As to the long animations, that is not really a good argument about them being useless or weak. Take Knights of the Round from FF7 for example, that thing had a horrendously long animation, however it was also one of the strongest attacks in that game. Could you likely do more damage than it did during that animation period? Quite likely, however outside of specific character's limit breaks there was no way to do more damage in a single action.

How to fix summoner.

First, change the pets to new models of...
a Skeleton in place of Ifrit.
a Zombie in place of titan.
a ghost in place of garuda.

change the pet abilites graphics and names to fit pets name.

Change a AF gear to look like something like this.
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__...mancer_FFV.png

Change summoner's name to necromancer.

"summoner" is now "fixed"

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Originally Posted by Hawklaser

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See, this is what I'm talking about.

The damage has never been fine when there's always an avenue to do more. The steep costs just make it worse.

Animations, in particular, are bad. Especially when they do less damage. KotR in FF7 is a HORRIBLE example. Why use that, with the long animation, when you can just mimic limit break? You said it yourself, there's a vastly superior option(and not just limited to 1 character). Hell, even Double Attack+Haste would most likely out damage KotR. It was also a jab at FF9, since any long animations were bad due to how buffs worked. First, they lasted based on both the casters and receivers spirit stat. Second, the timer went down during any animation and idle time.

And then when you compare ANY of the other summons? LOL

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Originally Posted by Kevee

See, this is what I'm talking about.

The damage has never been fine when there's always an avenue to do more. The steep costs just make it worse.

Animations, in particular, are bad. Especially when they do less damage. KotR in FF7 is a HORRIBLE example. Why use that, with the long animation, when you can just mimic limit break? You said it yourself, there's a vastly superior option(and not just limited to 1 character). Hell, even Double Attack+Haste would most likely out damage KotR. It was also a jab at FF9, since any long animations were bad due to how buffs worked. First, they lasted based on both the casters and receivers spirit stat. Second, the timer went down during any animation and idle time.

And then when you compare ANY of the other summons? LOL

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You miss the point of relative damage. As by the logic you are using why bother obtaining any gear but the "ultimate" gear in a game because it is just useless. So tell me, if the only damage that matters is the absolute best option, why should I use anything but level 1 gear until I get it, after all it is a waste using that logic. And on the magic side, why bother using cure or fire at all, because there are later spells that outclass them as well. And on the same point, in some games why even bother using the ultimate spells when with enough grinding can get plain old Fire to do the same thing for less? This is a problem when just look at things from a Min-Max perspective, you only look at things in the perfect optimal set-ups which rarely happen until post game anyways.

You also missed the point I made about animation sequences, which KotR is the perfect example for. As I said it was quite possible you could do more damage during the same amount of time as KotR's animation, but outside of the large multi hit limits like Omnislash, there was no way to do more damage in a single action. And guess what, those hard hitting limits were not just handed over to you on a silver plater either. If could turn off all the animations in FF7, you would just as likely abuse mimic-KotR as you would mimic-limit, which you could not do every single fight either seeing as limits had limitations on their use as well.

Now buffs and other timers continuing during a long forced animation is more of a overall design flaw than an issue with the abilities with the long animations.

at lvl 50 smn's damage are good. We have not a big burst (but still we have enkindle, bane & miasma II) but overall damage we are at top dps. Dont panic about it.

I really enjoy my SMN...
Granted, I only play SMN when soloing or someone else in my FC wants to heal.
But regardless, I REALLY enjoy the way the XIV SMN plays and feel.

I get where you all are coming from, and I have faith that SE will do right by us in the long run.
As far as not feeling like a summoner? Things change all the time in Final Fantasy-- look at SCH, for example! Next to nothing like the XI SCH job, yet I embrace it for what it is in this incarnation and enjoy it immensely!

I just did a bit of testing.

ACN lvl 50 Ifrit Tome
INT-387
Determination-291
Crit 386
Ruin II-crit 210 normal 145-160
Energy drain- Cirt 406,Normal 270-290
Shadow Flare 65-77
Dots-Bio,Bio2,Miasma,Thunder,Aero
Dot tick range 314-380 middle range of 340-355
Dot tick range with raging strikes(180s) 380-405
Dot tick range with raging strikes(180s) + internal release(60s) 414-487
Emerald Caryb Auto attack 130-145 crit 213


SMN LVL 50 Ifrit Tome
Int 394
Determination 290
Crit 415
Ruin II-151-160 crit 230
Energy Drain-282-303 crit 440
Fester-580-600 crit 900-1000
Shadow Flare-65-77
Tri-Disaster(lul)-57-60 crit 81
Dots-Bio,BioII,Miasma,Thunder
Dot tick range-285-320 middle range 315 High of 347(crit probably)
Dot tick range with raging strikes(180s) -340-386
Garuda Auto Attack-148-162 crit 250

There is not a whole lot different. Granted fester is amazing. Best thing about summoner, but as a whole the damage remains about the same, even with less int on the acn.I still love the class of course, but a bit of a disappointment really.

Put this in this thread too, since there are a couple good threads going.

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Originally Posted by HWF-7force

Next to nothing like the XI SCH job

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All SCH is, is a RDM that doesn't use melee. And in XIV, they actually took away its BLM spells, so it's more like a WHM with a pet. The only reason SCH and SMN have DoTs is because they wanted a class with a DoT mechanic AND needed to put SCH and SMN in the game because people wanted it. So they meshed them together when they shouldn't have. It wasn't creativity that made them, but a lack of it.

Anyway, I love SCH and this whole fucking thread is NOT ABOUT DMG or ABILITY TO FUNCTION as a class. It's about SMN not being a traditional SMN. Plain and simple. It does dmg, it isn't a bad class if you take away the SMN name.

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at lvl 50 smn's damage are good. We have not a big burst (but still we have enkindle, bane & miasma II) but overall damage we are at top dps. Dont panic about it.

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You didn't even read the top of the opening post, let alone the rest of it. This thread isn't about SMN's DPS.

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Originally Posted by Hawklaser

You miss the point of relative damage. As by the logic you are using why bother obtaining any gear but the "ultimate" gear in a game because it is just useless. So tell me, if the only damage that matters is the absolute best option, why should I use anything but level 1 gear until I get it, after all it is a waste using that logic. And on the magic side, why bother using cure or fire at all, because there are later spells that outclass them as well. And on the same point, in some games why even bother using the ultimate spells when with enough grinding can get plain old Fire to do the same thing for less? This is a problem when just look at things from a Min-Max perspective, you only look at things in the perfect optimal set-ups which rarely happen until post game anyways.

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You missed the point. They are relatively weaker throughout.

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Originally Posted by Hawklaser

You also missed the point I made about animation sequences, which KotR is the perfect example for. As I said it was quite possible you could do more damage during the same amount of time as KotR's animation, but outside of the large multi hit limits like Omnislash, there was no way to do more damage in a single action. And guess what, those hard hitting limits were not just handed over to you on a silver plater either. If could turn off all the animations in FF7, you would just as likely abuse mimic-KotR as you would mimic-limit, which you could not do every single fight either seeing as limits had limitations on their use as well.

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It doesn't matter if anything else couldn't do more damage in a single action, if over the course of the animation you can get multiple actions that deal more total damage. You can't turn off animations, so why even bring it up? Not to mention KotR had it's own limitation in the MP cost, and unless you spent time grinding to master it, or mimic materia, only one person could master it. That's more of a limitation than LB when you can just pre-grind it for anything you needed.

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Originally Posted by Samuraiking

It's about SMN not being a traditional SMN.

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What is a traditional SMN?

I don't see what the problem with SMN is. They output the highest damage in the game as it is right now.

Traditionally it's a job where the Summoner controls a powerful entity, much more powerful than the Summoner himself, to do his bidding. Meaning, the Summoner doesn't have many abilities itself besides summoning an entity and controlling it. All of the abilities Summoners have mostly come from the powerful summons they have. Arcanist abilities(DoTs, etc) in FFXIV have never been a part of the Summoner job. So, for an MMO like this, your pet should be much more powerful than the caster. Right now, the Summoner is overwhelmingly more powerful than these Egis they have. This is why people are angry.

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Originally Posted by Razzorn

Traditionally it's a job where the Summoner controls a powerful entity, much more powerful than the Summoner himself, to do his bidding. Meaning, the Summoner doesn't have many abilities itself besides summoning an entity and controlling it. All of the abilities Summoners have mostly come from the powerful summons they have. Arcanist abilities(DoTs, etc) in FFXIV have never been a part of the Summoner job. So, for an MMO like this, your pet should be much more powerful than the caster.

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And which Final Fantasy game does that come from?

None of them? Maybe FFIII?

Apparently you haven't played many FF games. Any game where a Summoner appears, the Summons are much more powerful than the Summoner itself. Until this game anyways.

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Originally Posted by Razzorn

Apparently you haven't played many FF games. Any game where a Summoner appears, the Summons are much more powerful than the Summoner itself. Until this game anyways.

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Name one that isn't lore based.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

You missed the point. They are relatively weaker throughout.


It doesn't matter if anything else couldn't do more damage in a single action, if over the course of the animation you can get multiple actions that deal more total damage. You can't turn off animations, so why even bring it up? Not to mention KotR had it's own limitation in the MP cost, and unless you spent time grinding to master it, or mimic materia, only one person could master it. That's more of a limitation than LB when you can just pre-grind it for anything you needed.

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Feel free to continue to write off all but the most easily abused or overpowered summons. And you still don't get the point of why the single action is important to consider in what was essentially a turn based game.And in turn based games, if trying to be as efficient and effective as possible animation times become irrelevant. As when both sides can not act simultaneously damage/healing per action is what matters in determining if you win or loose, not damage per second. Even in games where multiple characters can act at the same time, it still comes back to damage per action, which is how you get those "best" DPS rotations. The only reason people did not use KotR all the time was due to boredom and impatience, not its strength. If you still don't get this, I am not going to waste any more time trying to get you to understand.

Which comes back the the whole reason why SMN does not feel like a SMN. XI's SMN at least felt like a SMN because they did have access to those big impactful moves, however they were pretty much forced into a healer in a pinch role anytime they really could not use those abilities. So in order to avoid those issues, they evidently decided to try an approach that puts more focus on the character than the summons themselves.

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Originally Posted by Kevee

And which Final Fantasy game does that come from?

None of them? Maybe FFIII?

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Final Fantasy X You control the summon until it dies or you send it away and can also teach it moves.

I don't think you're going to convince anyone that their opinion of what a summoner "should" be is "wrong".

You make good points but...isn't lore kinda, why people play this game? Because it is a Final Fantasy game, shouldn't justification that "summons" are powerful and awesome be enough? Why does it have to be numerically "the best"?

For that matter, why do we have bio? Who the heck used that? Bio's not very good compared to the "miming limit breaks" that you said. Doesn't make sense in this context.

And I used summons all the time, especially when fighting bosses, because um, they were neat looking? I loved the animations and stuff. Final Fantasy had always had super awesome flashy graphics for their summons and it was a joy (especially the first time) that you were able to summon something.

So that feeling is missing, and thats why I don't enjoy the theme of the class. Its efficacy has nothing to do with anything here. You could've called it a summoner, gave it a lance and lancer abilities, and make it do tons of damage, and people would complain, and I think even you would agree that is wrong. This is the same thing...except just because it is a "caster" type with a pet you somehow feel justified.

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Originally Posted by Inosaska

Final Fantasy X You control the summon until it dies or you send it away and can also teach it moves.

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They were also useless.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

except just because it is a "caster" type with a pet you somehow feel justified.

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I don't need to feel justified because I, as a player, don't define it. It has no definition besides "summons things."

That's what it does, and it's not like the pet is useless or means nothing.

Final fantasy X summons useless? You can build them as the most OP things ever just like the main characters. The good thing about X was the fact that anyone can be OP in that game.

Plus my summons in IX hitting for 9999 damage like everyone else along with vivi's doomsday.

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Originally Posted by shinros

Final fantasy X summons useless? You can build them as the most OP things ever just like the main characters. The good thing about X was the fact that anyone can be OP in that game.

Plus my summons in IX hitting for 9999 damage like everyone else along with vivi's doomsday.

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Yes, in the latest part of X summons were useless. Summoning meant calling back the entire party for the aeon to take their place. Why have 1 character do 9999 when you can have each member of the party do the same? The only usefulness in that situation would be summoning before an unavoidable 1 hit KO attach, which means you'd sacrifice the aeon instead of going to Game Over, and for that a lv1 aeon would suffice.

Anyone know of a way to strengthen the summoned egi? I mean, let's take two different summoners, one in full AF, the other in full Darklight, will the summoned egi be strengthened based on the gear equipped by the master?

I ask this because coming from FFXI where gear clearly denoted strengths benefiting the summoned avatar, this isn't the case in FFXIV:ARR--i would love to have gear added into the game that actually makes the summoned egi stronger... is this possible and if so, why not look at implementing it as a viable gearing (iLvl) option?

Does adding pet enhancing gear on top of iLvl offset or take away from the master's ability to appropriately gear themselves? I would say no, but I'm just asking, perhaps a Dev can look into this.

Thanks!

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Originally Posted by BloodPact

Yes, in the latest part of X summons were useless. Summoning meant calling back the entire party for the aeon to take their place. Why have 1 character do 9999 when you can have each member of the party do the same? The only usefulness in that situation would be summoning before an unavoidable 1 hit KO attach, which means you'd sacrifice the aeon instead of going to Game Over, and for that a lv1 aeon would suffice.

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Yeah but I had the choice and the summons are strong sometimes I just do a run where I use anima or shiva to murder all the dark aeons and the super boss. Its fun. They are only "useless" if you don't invest in them. Plus in IX all my party members did 9999 damage garnet does not have to heal a round? Throw a hellfire or megaflare in their face.

Plus anima limit break is the most OP thing ever.

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Anyone know of a way to strengthen the summoned egi

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Stats on gear are inherited by pet, snapshotted on summon, ignoring any temporary modifications.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

For that matter, why do we have bio? Who the heck used that?

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I actually used it quite frequently, as it was often one of the stronger and more reliable spells around the time you got it.

As to the reason why it shows up on ACN which branches to both SMN and SCH is likely due to XI's SCH being focused on DoT/HoT spells outside of its stratagems, and also due to Rydia the first Summoner in a FF without a job system. She was essentially a BLM/SMN character, and she had a spell called Virus or Bio depending on which version of FF4 you played. So this is likely them trying to go back to the Black Mage like Summoners instead of the White Mage Summoners of late, while also trying to not step on the toes of Black Mages.

While someone (or SE) said something about White Mages using stone/aero because of FF3 or something, I believe SMN's DoT gameplay style and possession of spells like Bio exists solely because they wanted another caster DPS class, specifically one that uses DoTs. People just also wanted Summoner, so they decided to merge the concepts (which they should not have done).

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Originally Posted by Crevox

The thing is Summoner does not play at all similarly to ANY Summoner in ANY Final Fantasy. This is the only job where this is the case, as the majority of others play similarly to previous jobs (Scholar is the other exception, but it got owned just as Summoner did by that stupid base class and their rushed need for a specific gameplay style/role to be fulfilled).

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Warrior says "hi", as that wasn't a self-healing tank in any of the previous FFs. The warriors aren't throwing fits that WAR doesn't play like FF1's Fighter, by the way.

As far as getting "owned", I don't know what to tell you. SMN was built on ACN's framework and there's not much helping that now. Where the job needs actual help is more in things like command input for pet abilities being completely separate from command input for player character abilities, better pet AI for the three egis (Ifrit's pathing should be set to be directly behind the target mob, Garuda's pathing should aim to be next to the SMN), a much better pet UI, and greatly reduced damage from all types of AoEs.

Warrior being tank is not a big deal. It still swings a giant two handed axe and does various axe attacks offensively. It just happens to also play the tank role, however that doesn't change much in terms of its fighting style. Warrior can also DPS quite well if you run it with STR accessories and such.

Summoner, on the other hand, never used DoTs, and doesn't even fight primarily with summons in this game.

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SMN was built on SCH's framework and there's not much helping that now

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By this I assume you mean ACN.

Regardless of that, changes can be made to help it. I would say it's silly to expect an entire remake, but changes can still be done. My main post explains a lot of things.

by the power of bump I restore thee topic to the top

I've started calling the summoner, S.I.N.O. (Summoner In Name Only) due to this seems to be how people feel about the summoner.

Anyways, the issue with the S.I.N.O., in my humble opinion, is the player were expecting something different. The summoner ended up being taken off the MMO dot/pet class checklist. I think, the player just expected better of SE when handling a class/job that FF was renown for.


My biggest issue is the job quests. In other job quests, there is a reason I'm learning spells/abilities. For example, SCH I'm learning spells from my Fairy and my quests are to help her regain her memories so she can teach me more magic. The S.I.N.O., I still have no idea why I learned Fester and Tri-Disaster. After I fought the titan-egi followed by that random summoner guy, it rewards me with Fester. My though on this was, why? Where did I learn this spell from? Did I find it in my pocket? Same thing with Tri-Disaster, why did going out looking for that random summoner guy teach me Tri-Disaster? What do these spell have to do with summoning? The quest created questions and that is failing in storytelling. I though SE was big on storytelling.

Exactly Klive hence why I am disappointed with the summoner quests from a lore standpoint. It was pretty much here is your pet off you go oh and you got a crazy summoner following you have fun!

While with the black mage they tell you where the powers come from and how they are connected to the void and you meet some interesting friends along the way who actually teach you the black magic spells. Plus the story surrounding the person who makes you one is quite sad too.

does anyone else feel that the pet ai needs to be better? I mean, I play on ps3 and its really hard to try controlling the pet when first of all, you cant command it while you are casting and its kind of a pain to switch from 1 bar to the other to try to give it commands. I have become a lot better with the gamepad, but I feel like I could do so much more if I had mouse. I had lost my pet in countless battles just because the stupid thing just stands in the middle of an aoe and when I give it a command to move out of the way it takes so long for the damn thing to take effect that he just dies. Also, I believe heals from the summoner himself should have double potency effect on his pet. Sometimes I feel like it takes to long to heal it.

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does anyone else feel that the pet ai needs to be better? I mean, I play on ps3 and its really hard to try controlling the pet when first of all, you cant command it while you are casting and its kind of a pain to switch from 1 bar to the other to try to give it commands. I have become a lot better with the gamepad, but I feel like I could do so much more if I had mouse. I had lost my pet in countless battles just because the stupid thing just stands in the middle of an aoe and when I give it a command to move out of the way it takes so long for the damn thing to take effect that he just dies. Also, I believe heals from the summoner himself should have double potency effect on his pet. Sometimes I feel like it takes to long to heal it.

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The only real issue is the clunkiness of ordering it. You can't give it orders while casting, and there's a few other quirky things too... for example with Garuda. If you order her to use Contagion -> Aerial Slash, by pressing one after another, she won't use Aerial Slash after Contagion. You have to wait for Contagion to finish, wait for her to execute an auto attack, THEN command her during the auto attack and she will use it afterward. This causes even more issues when you use stuff like Contagion and then use Enkindle. They won't activate their ultimate skill and Enkindle will be wasted.

There's more clunkiness and issues with the pets, but yeah, ordering while casting is a big one that is just a pain. It would be nice if they were more responsive in general and obey your commands quicker (even for simple things like telling it to attack a different target often causes it to sit there and do nothing for a couple seconds before attacking again).

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Originally Posted by Klive

I've started calling the summoner, S.I.N.O. (Summoner In Name Only) due to this seems to be how people feel about the summoner.

Anyways, the issue with the S.I.N.O., in my humble opinion, is the player were expecting something different. The summoner ended up being taken off the MMO dot/pet class checklist. I think, the player just expected better of SE when handling a class/job that FF was renown for.
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my guess is tha SE wanted another healing class, and wanted a pet class too , so created sch and attached smn afterwards....because creating a new class + job is a lot of work (quest , gear ....)

so SE killed the need for a dot , pet class in 1 hit , oh and added a healing job on top of that.

how to kill 3 birds with 1 stone? arcanist , dots pets and healer!

the problem is that dots ok , healer ok , but pets? fail to deliver

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the problem is that dots ok , healer ok , but pets? fail to deliver

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And fail to deliver on the SMN fan's desires and wishes.

bump... still hoping SE has at LEAST some balance changes planned for 2.1, nothing but big feature announcements (that have already been stated) over and over so far

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Originally Posted by Crevox

bump... still hoping SE has at LEAST some balance changes planned for 2.1, nothing but big feature announcements (that have already been stated) over and over so far

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What is out of balance?

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Originally Posted by Kevee

What is out of balance?

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A lot of things.

I have leveled DRG recently, and while I think DRG class is about perfect, and in much better shape, I noticed my SMN does a ton more dmg than my DRG; it's just not as fun to play. The pet AI is terrible. The customization (turning off certain skills) of pet bar is terrible. The obey command sucks. The overall dmg potential needs to be lowered and we need to be given a little more burst. Yes, Fester is great, but I have to apply dots first, so it's not as easy to kill a bee in AK as it would be on DRG. Still, the ramp-up dmg trade-off is nice, it just sucks for burst fights. There are more things, but I am stuck to 1000 character limit.