SUMMONER, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE OR ADD? (EVOLUTION & STAT ALLOCATION)

The problem is that SE didn't create a 'Summoner', they created a WoW-esq Warlock and called it Summoner

In fact that's how I feel about a majority of the game. They didn't make a 'Final Fantasy' title, they made an MMO and called it Final Fantasy

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Originally Posted by Jocko

The problem is that SE didn't create a 'Summoner', they created a WoW-esq Warlock and called it Summoner

In fact that's how I feel about a majority of the game. They didn't make a 'Final Fantasy' title, they made an MMO and called it Final Fantasy

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Actually, they pulled a LOT of Final Fantasy lore from many of the Final Fantasy games of the past. There's a thread around here detailing all of the different things that were 'borrowed' from the FF series as a whole. Personally, I think FFXIV did a much better job at making this game feel like a "Final Fantasy" game than the last MMO (FFXI) did... and I LOVED FFXI. I love FFXIV too, although I would love to see more story than I've already seen.

That said, you are correct that FFXIV Summoner feels very similar to 'warlock' in WoW -- but that's mostly because of the DoT mechanics and similar ability names. (Doesn't Warlock have an ability called Shadow Flare too? Or something similar?) Your Egi actually accounts for more of your damage than you will at first realize, but the only real time you interact with your pet is telling it to move, initializing Enkindle, or giving them the two buff cooldowns. You can also take charge and (for example) tell Garuda when to use the DoT-extension ability (useful to time in certain fights), but your actual interaction with your pet is very limited compared to what people think it should be.

This thread could get a 1000+ pages and I still bet they wouldn't change it. I'm in full support of this, but I just dont see it happening. This is square enix we are talking about.

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Originally Posted by Ryuko

Actually, they pulled a LOT of Final Fantasy lore from many of the Final Fantasy games of the past. There's a thread around here detailing all of the different things that were 'borrowed' from the FF series as a whole. Personally, I think FFXIV did a much better job at making this game feel like a "Final Fantasy" game than the last MMO (FFXI) did... and I LOVED FFXI. I love FFXIV too, although I would love to see more story than I've already seen.

That said, you are correct that FFXIV Summoner feels very similar to 'warlock' in WoW -- but that's mostly because of the DoT mechanics and similar ability names. (Doesn't Warlock have an ability called Shadow Flare too? Or something similar?) Your Egi actually accounts for more of your damage than you will at first realize, but the only real time you interact with your pet is telling it to move, initializing Enkindle, or giving them the two buff cooldowns. You can also take charge and (for example) tell Garuda when to use the DoT-extension ability (useful to time in certain fights), but your actual interaction with your pet is very limited compared to what people think it should be.

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Infact THAT'S the main problem. The interaction with your egi is almost zero, while I expected "a summoner". I mean, I've done summoner for their summons, I'm ok with egi graphics (except titan, but I suppose is personal), what I'm not ok is their usage: DEBUFFS are much more relevant than my summons, which is quite sad.

And more sad is the fact that chocobo is a much more interesting summon (talent tree, "stance" tank/healer/dps)... the egi's are completely sad and fail totally at giving you the feeling of "handling a part of the power of a primal".

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Originally Posted by Fire-Dragon-DoL

Infact THAT'S the main problem. The interaction with your egi is almost zero, while I expected "a summoner". I mean, I've done summoner for their summons, I'm ok with egi graphics (except titan, but I suppose is personal), what I'm not ok is their usage: DEBUFFS are much more relevant than my summons, which is quite sad.

And more sad is the fact that chocobo is a much more interesting summon (talent tree, "stance" tank/healer/dps)... the egi's are completely sad and fail totally at giving you the feeling of "handling a part of the power of a primal".

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I would love some sort of talent tree for the pets, but I am almost positive that it would result in people picking the same exact talents anyway...

I understand that people are upset about summoners not having much interaction with the pets. I get it. But I also can't think of a 'real' way to increase that interaction. I mean, if you compare it to FFXI -- FFXI was very slow. You would tell your pet to attack and then just stand back and watch. Every minute (or slightly less if you had the gear), you would tell your pet to use a special ability. Eventually this was split into attack/buff timers, but that's still only TWO abilities per minute IF you chose to use both. Meanwhile, you're pet is attacking and you are mostly standing still, unless you are hitting the mob for a low amount of melee damage of backup healing as support.

Now let's look at FFXIV... This game operates at a much faster pace than FFXI. Some of the harder fights require you to move a lot, as well as move your pet (unless you want to have to keep resummoning). If your job was to just stand still, avoid things, and press buttons to watch your pet do certain attacks... it would literally amount to the SAME thing as it is now, with the exception being the origin of damage. (You'd still be casting, but the animation of what happens would come from your pet.) I envision the Egis of the future having more utility and interaction (mostly because of the feedback people have given in threads like these). For example, perhaps Ramuh will have a stun that can only be used when YOU initiate it. Of course, there are other problems that come into play... What if Ramuh is in the middle of using an attack. Is there a delay? Will your stun hit in time to interrupt something?

We have to think about what summoner is and CAN be in the grand scope of things. How can we make the class more pet-oriented while not encouraging summoners to just 'stand' there and be immobile without something to constantly do?

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Originally Posted by Miiu

Just have to chime in here to 1000% agree with Duelle. Garuda's design in FFXI is way superior to the one presented in FFXIV. :/

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Hey now, I never said it was superior. >.>

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Originally Posted by Andrien

I'm sorry I can't let this slide. Looks is subjective, but what the hell are you two smoking? "FFXI Garuda has a more bestial look" "Is more superior"?

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I never said it was superior. Just that it would be difficult to transpose that in an abstract style.

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the other is just completely butt naked, and showing off her breast.

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Really? I always thought her body was covered in bristles (like the little feathers that cover a bird's head) with her forearms and feet having more pronounced feathers. As opposed to XIV's Garuda, who has green naked flesh under cleverly-placed armor and plumage.

PS: I can't believe we're actually having this conversation.

i want them to fix TRI CRAP

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Originally Posted by Duelle

I don't think you can do much with Garuda seeing how over-sex-appealed her design is without simplifying her look.

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Originally Posted by Miiu

Just have to chime in here to 1000% agree with Duelle. Gardua's design in FFXI is way superior to the one presented in FFXIV. :/

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It doesn't have to be a direct translation. It could simply reflect the harpy like qualities she has. The wings could easily be more feather-ed like(or more like harpy wings in general instead of just normal wings with no arms), Garuda has her headdress thing going on, so why not add something similar instead of just a tiny pointy head/beak. Shoot Garuda egi could be a simpler version of a Harpy with some tweaks.

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Originally Posted by Andrien

Are we seeing the same thing here? Okay, one has a thong thing, and the other is just completely butt naked, and showing off her breast.

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Looking at the FXI Garuda I would have to agree. Both look pretty nude to me. I feel like the amp'ed up breast and how she acts in FXIV is what primarily sexualizes her though.

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Originally Posted by Ryuko

We are NOT summoning avatars of the primals. We are drawing from the same energy that the primals come from -- aethereal energy (we are arcanists at our base, remember). Our relic weapon has a crystal designed to better channel that energy. This is why the Egis appear as they do and do not have a personality... BECAUSE we are just one summoner. I don't understand how people don't get this. It's in the storyline. :(

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Then explain Carbuncle not being a glowing ball? I mean if everything had to be simplified, why did we get a full blown carbuncle prime as pet on level 4? Clearly we have room for detailed and wonderful pets, as long as they remain small. And I for one wouldn't mind the entire cast of primes to be next to me in fairy size as long as they looked like their originals. Others would of course disagree since they can't stand things not looking big and mean.

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

Then explain Carbuncle not being a glowing ball? I mean if everything had to be simplified, why did we get a full blown carbuncle prime as pet on level 4? Clearly we have room for detailed and wonderful pets, as long as they remain small. And I for one wouldn't mind the entire cast of primes to be next to me in fairy size as long as they looked like their originals. Others would of course disagree since they can't stand things not looking big and mean.

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To be fair, they didn't really explain Carbuncle very well at all. I was super surprised by that. I might go back through the cutscenes and refresh my memory to see if there is a better explanation than I can remember. I also remember absolutely NO lore reason behind why we 'lose' Carbuncle as we gain the elemental Egis. Then again, there is no large primal Carbuncle mentioned in the storyline like Ifrit, Garuda, Titan, Leviathan, Ramuh, etc... So he may be something different than the same 'glowing ball' I envision would be an Egi... but he's not an Egi because it doesn't say Carbuncle-Egi. It says Emerald or Topaz Carbuncle.

Make Summoners Summoners and not DoT Warlocks

@Duelle
Sorry I understood your text as such. Didn't want to put words in your mouth.

@Carbuncle
It might be because carbuncle helps you voluntarily. At least thats why I remember from the FFXI summoner storyline. If I'm wrong please say so. It has been way too long since I did the quest.

The chococomparision is a good example of how screwed up the whole summoner class is (not saying I'm for talent trees (dunno maybe I am)). A companion that everyone can get has more attention to playstyle than the one "Pet class" we have.

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Originally Posted by Miiu

@Duelle
Sorry I understood your text as such. Didn't want to put words in your mouth.

@Carbuncle
It might be because carbuncle helps you voluntarily. At least thats why I remember from the FFXI summoner storyline. If I'm wrong please say so. It has been way too long since I did the quest.

The chococomparision is a good example of how screwed up the whole summoner class is (not saying I'm for talent trees (dunno maybe I am)). A companion that everyone can get has more attention to playstyle than the one "Pet class" we have.

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One thing that personally bugs me is how stupid pets are. For example, I've seen fairies MPK groups because they automatically toss a heal once a pull is made or hate reset happens. You'll see Garuda run off like a mad-woman if you don't put her on Steady in AK and a Succubus manages to hit her.

But the most annoying thing to me is when you fight Hydra... Egis can be targeted by the ground AoEs. By the time you see the red circle is on Garuda and instruct her to move out (or just tell her to 'follow' you), it is too late... the Egi will be hit, get the DoT, and die... every time. There is a delay on what you tell your pet to do... Oh, and you need to wait for the animation to 'finish' before you use Enkindle. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty all the 2hour (5 min) abilities work this way... It's very annoying as a healer with Benediction. I have to wait until my little twirl goes off. lol

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Originally Posted by Ryuko

One thing that personally bugs me is how stupid pets are. For example, I've seen fairies MPK groups because they automatically toss a heal once a pull is made or hate reset happens. You'll see Garuda run off like a mad-woman if you don't put her on Steady in AK and a Succubus manages to hit her.

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I agree with you, but that should be filed under issues with pet AI, and I hope that aside from complaining about the appearance of egi at least some of the posters here are giving feedback to SE on pet AI and the terrible UI we're mired with.

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Originally Posted by Ryuko

To be fair, they didn't really explain Carbuncle very well at all. I was super surprised by that. I might go back through the cutscenes and refresh my memory to see if there is a better explanation than I can remember.

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From what I recall, Carbuncle is the manifestation of your strategems as an arcanist. If you wanted to put it in modern terms, he'd be really close to a computer program you created yourself (following a guideline set by the arcanist's guild). The main thing to keep in mind is that carby has a sort of guideline for it (hence why it has a clear shape and is used en-masse by everyone who picks a grimoire). Instead of 1's and 0's your construct if made through a combination of geometric patterns drawn by you on your grimoire and aether.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

I agree with you, but that should be filed under issues with pet AI, and I hope that aside from complaining about the appearance of egi at least some of the posters here are giving feedback to SE on pet AI and the terrible UI we're mired with.

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I've seen these "I HATE HOW SUMMONER PETS LOOK" threads pop up more than any other criticisms. There were a few "SMN don't have any burst -- this is stupid" threads during the first week... I guess until people realized we have ways around that and SMN sustained damage is more than enough to make up for our lack in burst when killing adds ASAP. (Fester charges are more than enough to pull your weight on Titan heart, for example... and planning to Bane and spreading DoTs as soon as adds spawn on Garuda will make up for the lack of burst there.)

People also complain about Egi damage without actually parsing to see how much damage the pet actually does. I can't give an exact estimate, but a pet definitely does more than 10%. A summoner's damage is already pretty high... it's usually the pet that sets a summoner's full damage over other players with equal gear. Keep in mind that your pet's stats SEEM to increase with YOUR gear. (Or at least the HP from your VIT does... I haven't strictly parsed pet damage with gear on/off.)

The most legitimate complaint/criticism that I hear involves the fact that summoner operates VERY similarly to an Affliction (DoT spec) warlock in WoW. It's true... although the lore is different... but I can't think of a great 'fix' to this since this is a game that encourages you to ALWAYS be doing something (very rarely do you just 'stand still' like in FFXI). If anyone can think of a great fix to the "Summoner = Warlock" complaint that actually works with this game, please speak up now. Saying, "I wish our pet did more" isn't enough because standing there and commanding a pet just isn't going to work in a fast-paced game like this. We aren't playing FFXI anymore. =/

I would have leveled Summoner to 50 already if was actual traditional FF Summoner and not FamiliarER. It's just not really fun spamming debuffs and using something so small and not threatening with the reputation of Summoner.

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Originally Posted by Ryuko

I've seen these "I HATE HOW SUMMONER PETS LOOK" threads pop up more than any other criticisms. /

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Its Because Final Fantasy has always been about the Summons looking like eye candy. Yes they dont have to be BIG, but the fact they are so small and look like Cute Chibi baby versions of the primals is what people dont like.

As a summoner, the Summons should look like they can protect you, not the other way around. They look like Fancy Minions.

Most gamers understand that having the actual primals as pets dont make sense for the XIV lore, but SE could have made the look of the Egi more Full & Detailed.

I wish SE would have gave us actual summons that they werent going to use as Primals (Ixion, Valefor, Belias, Mateus, Fenrir, Quetzalcoatl ETC.)

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

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There were a few "SMN don't have any burst -- this is stupid" threads during the first week... I guess until people realized we have ways around that and SMN sustained damage is more than enough to make up for our lack in burst when killing adds ASAP. (Fester charges are more than enough to pull your weight on Titan heart, for example... and planning to Bane and spreading DoTs as soon as adds spawn on Garuda will make up for the lack of burst there.)

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Summoners arent very good at killing adds quicky since they dont have reliable insta damage moves. Their efficiency against adds are very situational and Inconsistent. Agaist Titans heart, sumoners dont really have a problem. The problem comes more from SMN trying to get players out of the stone titan incases them in.

The aether flow charges arent always there, and still very situational unlike an archers AOE bow, or a Lancers AOE jump. SMN has to pre dot adds, and by then 2 other DD could have taken then down 3 times.

Enkindle Should be reduced to 60 Seconds recast to fix this.

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People also complain about Egi damage without actually parsing to see how much damage the pet actually does. I can't give an exact estimate, but a pet definitely does more than 10%. A summoner's damage is already pretty high... it's usually the pet that sets a summoner's full damage over other players with equal gear. Keep in mind that your pet's stats SEEM to increase with YOUR gear. (Or at least the HP from your VIT does... I haven't strictly parsed pet damage with gear on/off.)

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10% is very low. The actual Summoner should do 20% of the Pet Damage Since its called a Summoner. The majority of the damage should come from the pet.

Should have been like Scholar, Healing is Number 1 and Dots are 2nd. Pet damage should be number 1, and Dots 2nd.

You can tell something is wrong when when a "Summoner" can perform very well without their pet.

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The most legitimate complaint/criticism that I hear involves the fact that summoner operates VERY similarly to an Affliction (DoT spec) warlock in WoW. It's true... although the lore is different... but I can't think of a great 'fix' to this since this is a game that encourages you to ALWAYS be doing something (very rarely do you just 'stand still' like in FFXI). If anyone can think of a great fix to the "Summoner = Warlock" complaint that actually works with this game, please speak up now. Saying, "I wish our pet did more" isn't enough because standing there and commanding a pet just isn't going to work in a fast-paced game like this. We aren't playing FFXI anymore. =

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Here is what i think is best.

Pets should do 80% of the Damage while the dots cover the rest.

Fester should be performed through the pet like enkindle and do various things depending what pet is out. Garuda does the norm single target damage fester already does, Ifrit could do a Cone damage version, and Titan can do a PBAOE version which generates more aoe hate.

Moving forward with the level cap increase summoner should only get abilities that involve the pet.

Summoner should Perform through their pet, while dots coming from the summoner should act as a bonus in overall damage.

Ehm I don't know if anyone said this before me so sorry if I repeat it.

How about this;

Add a last skill to Egis that when used will grant them more % power from their respective primal forms for a short duration.
This will result in the Egi actually taking a more Primal form for that time duration.
The duration should be like 60secs in fight mode and having a kinda loong cooldown too.
Also this temporary evolution should give the empowered Egi more Dps, something like 15-20% more.

Like this summoners would have a little extra be it dps or egi looks and it would not hinder / irritate people in cities since the form
Goes off the moment battle is over etc.

It's kinda like the new Mega Evolution from pokemon, it's temporary, powerfull but not too much, good looking and enough

Give us a proper summoner lvl 3 limit break instead of pawning us off with blm meteor!!

You should never, ever let your pet do significantly more damage than you as a pet class. That's... not really feasible. The AI of a pet is too erratic, too unpredictable (Even with a fairly smooth AI like WoW's my pet as a hunter still has some stupid as hell glitches). There's no way to control the exact damage you want it to give (Can't shut off certain abilities, like in WoW when I went solo I would turn on my pets Provoke, but in groups I could turn it off) it's either turn of everything and micromanage, or turn off nothing and have them do whatever they want whenever they want... and with the AI that varies in success. If your pet does way more damage than you, there is no reason for you to even be in there. No one will want to bring a SMN anywhere who has to rely on a glitchy AI to do all the Damage.

That's not a solution, thats a bigger problem.

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Originally Posted by Ryuko

I've seen these "I HATE HOW SUMMONER PETS LOOK" threads pop up more than any other criticisms. There were a few "SMN don't have any burst -- this is stupid" threads during the first week... I guess until people realized we have ways around that and SMN sustained damage is more than enough to make up for our lack in burst when killing adds ASAP. (Fester charges are more than enough to pull your weight on Titan heart, for example... and planning to Bane and spreading DoTs as soon as adds spawn on Garuda will make up for the lack of burst there.)

People also complain about Egi damage without actually parsing to see how much damage the pet actually does. I can't give an exact estimate, but a pet definitely does more than 10%. A summoner's damage is already pretty high... it's usually the pet that sets a summoner's full damage over other players with equal gear. Keep in mind that your pet's stats SEEM to increase with YOUR gear. (Or at least the HP from your VIT does... I haven't strictly parsed pet damage with gear on/off.)

The most legitimate complaint/criticism that I hear involves the fact that summoner operates VERY similarly to an Affliction (DoT spec) warlock in WoW. It's true... although the lore is different... but I can't think of a great 'fix' to this since this is a game that encourages you to ALWAYS be doing something (very rarely do you just 'stand still' like in FFXI). If anyone can think of a great fix to the "Summoner = Warlock" complaint that actually works with this game, please speak up now. Saying, "I wish our pet did more" isn't enough because standing there and commanding a pet just isn't going to work in a fast-paced game like this. We aren't playing FFXI anymore. =/

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Agree 100%.

The Summoner fanboys need to first get it through their heads that this is not FFXI, nor any other FF in the series. You simply do not have the time to stand there and do your minute long incantation or draw your summoning circle to call out a massive pet of doom. You would go up against the very core of this game.

I can understand egis not looking "cool" enough, because that's mainly an opinionated viewpoint.

You want to know something funny? For whatever reason, it's always Summoner that always gets all the job fanatics up in a bunch. No other job seems to be able to accomplish this (well except maybe Red Mage, and I still remember some stupid rage about Scholar and the fairies in the beta forums, but people have shut up about it since). Saw it in FFXI, and it's reared its ugly head again here. Is the "reputation" of Summoner truly that important that people are willing to make 9001 topics on the "cool" factor? How about just having a job that gets what it needs to done? Aside from UI issues, Summoner is good at what it needs to do in this game.

Also, more opinion: I like the fact that Summoner can hold its own in a fight if for whatever reason your egis are disabled. Self-sufficiency is awesome. Personally, I wouldn't want too much focus on the pet. 50/50 split at the very most.

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Originally Posted by Alan-ere

Give us a proper summoner lvl 3 limit break instead of pawning us off with blm meteor!!

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Yes as should all jobs. I know yoshida said he didn't want every job to have their own limit break to prevent discrimination, but that doesn't mean each can't have their own unique LB Animation

Like bard should pull out its Harp and play a paeon to heal or revive everyone. Same LB, different animation.

Now, Summoner should have a LB animation of a summon appearing, attacking, then disappearing.

The perfect summon for this , (I think) Is Valefor from FFX. Each level limit break can be a different attack making level 3 his signature. Same LB as BLM different animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9r3...e_gdata_player

SE make this happen.

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Originally Posted by Arcari

The Summoner fanboys need to first get it through their heads that this is not FFXI, nor any other FF in the series. You simply do not have the time to stand there and do your minute long incantation or draw your summoning circle to call out a massive pet of doom. You would go up against the very core of this game.

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Yeah, because that doesn't already happen with Meteor LB...

or Raise/Resurrection...

/sarc

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Most gamers understand that having the actual primals as pets dont make sense for the XIV lore, but SE could have made the look of the Egi more Full & Detailed.

I wish SE would have gave us actual summons that they werent going to use as Primals (Ixion, Valefor, Belias, Mateus, Fenrir, Quetzalcoatl ETC.)

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Yes, yes, and yes. If primals are too powerful, just give us other summons.

We've already seen ARR art for many of them already. Chupon, Siren, Cait Sith, Fenrir, etc. And we currently have Carbuncle. Using those would have been a FAR more authentic SMN design than the "Egis"...

/sigh

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Originally Posted by Hvinire

We discussed your feedback about the design of the egi with the development team. As was mentioned previously during the Beta test, the design planner reiterated that egi were designed to be a manifestation of a percentage of power taken from the primals and are intentionally designed to appear differently from the primal. As such, we aren't planning on changing the look of egi at higher levels.

We will however continue to take in your feedback when creating new egi that will be added in the future.

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:( :( :(What a total letdown :( :( :(

Why didn't the devs just call the job "Evoker" (FFIII) if they were going to deviate so far from the FF SMN tradition?

Nobody would be complaining about betrayed expectations, small egis, etc. if the job was simply called Evoker.

I don't know if this was mentioned before but is there a reason why when you cast a spell.. all your hotbars are grayed out (including the pet bar)? I understand it indicates you can't use other spells but why include the pet bar. IMO a pet is a completely different identity. It would be nice to unlock the pet bar so that i could simultaneously control my pet to do other things while I'm casting a spell. Ex: when im casting physick, i always have to wait till its done before i can tell my fairy to use embrace. This is really annoying. I found a way around it but a complete freedom control of the pet would be nice...

I would also agree with some people that i became a little disappointed when i found out it was just a DoT class. I was hoping something different but all it does is remind me of warlocks in WoW and they had more freedom with their pets.. :( *crossing my fingers for a change* !

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Originally Posted by Ryuko

The most legitimate complaint/criticism that I hear involves the fact that summoner operates VERY similarly to an Affliction (DoT spec) warlock in WoW. It's true... although the lore is different... but I can't think of a great 'fix' to this since this is a game that encourages you to ALWAYS be doing something (very rarely do you just 'stand still' like in FFXI). If anyone can think of a great fix to the "Summoner = Warlock" complaint that actually works with this game, please speak up now. Saying, "I wish our pet did more" isn't enough because standing there and commanding a pet just isn't going to work in a fast-paced game like this. We aren't playing FFXI anymore. =/

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There's a very very easy fix to this that other MMOs have done in the past: have all the player skills actually cast by the pet. Instead of each pet having just four skills on its hotbar give it 10-15 and allows players to use them in a skill rotation like any other job. If you raised the pet's damage and reduced that of the summoner them self you'd have an active combat system and a high dependency on the pet. Problem solved.

Having said that I personally believe the reason they've avoided that is because they intend to use that mechanic for the puppetmaster when they release it... I can hope right?

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Originally Posted by Alberel

Instead of each pet having just four skills on its hotbar give it 10-15 and allows players to use them in a skill rotation like any other job. If you raised the pet's damage and reduced that of the summoner them self you'd have an active combat system and a high dependency on the pet. Problem solved.

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I don't see any real functional difference between me using the abilities or me TELLING my pet to use the same abilities. If anything, I don't like it because pet AI is currently very dumb. Others have said we should have the ability to turn off/on everything individually -- something I agree with. If I want to turn off JUST one of my pet's abilities (so I can manually use it), that would be nice. Instead, I'm forced to put my pet on passive, tell it who to attack (annoying when killing trash), and instruct it to use other abilities on cooldown. That said... WHY does passive turn back to Guard after EVERY encounter? I'd love if it would STAY on passive for as long as I have it that way.

Adding more emphasis to the pet's AI would really mess up summoner as a whole -- right now -- because the pet is just not SMART enough to be a large, reliable source of damage. There are times where I have to resummon Garuda-egi because she's being dumb, or because she got caught in an unavoidable Hydra fire AoE (by the time you tell her to move, it is too late. She dies. Part of the problem is that we CANNOT command our pet while casting a spell... so you are SOL if you were in the middle of Ruin spamming and you need to move her.) It also wouldn't be 'fair' in certain situations. For example... In Titan, after the first few jumps... if you have your Egi in the right position, she will never get hit by anything. Instead, she will be 'flying' in the air where the large outer platform used to be. Granted, you'll need to stay alive to keep her up... but she can keep shooting away without a care in the world. She never needs to take a break to do anything else. Also... pets take reduced damage (like in other MMOs) to 'make up' for the fact that they can't be moved as fast as players.

Perhaps they will improve the AI in future updates, which is why I'm sure there will be more emphasis on the pet as the level cap increases. Keep in mind that this game is NEW. They are forming brand new jobs (even if they are based on ones that existed in 1.0). Everything is going to get tweaked over the next few months/years. When the pet AI is fixed... do you guys really want to play a game where your pet does everything? I don't want that. I'm probably one of the few people who is more than content with summoner how it is now because I'm sure we'll get more cool pet abilities in the future. We're only level 50 right now. Summoner does GREAT damage and has a lot of utility in certain situations. I have my unique 'role'. We're not like 'any other dps'. I'm okay with how the lore works in this game. Summoner has never been about 'eye candy' for me (as someone else said).

Also, my comment about pets definitely doing more than 10%. I wanted to clarify that the reason I said 'more than 10%' is because someone else claimed our pets only do 10% of our damage. It's actually much more than that. AND that's 'free' damage if you remember to hit the cooldowns. Buuuuuut... it's possible to be a HORRIBLE summoner (I've seen it). Whether or not you are good is still in your hands. I would like that to continue to be true.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

There's a very very easy fix to this that other MMOs have done in the past: have all the player skills .........

Having said that I personally believe the reason they've avoided that is because they intend to use that mechanic for the puppetmaster when they release it... I can hope right?

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ooh ooh. i like that idea. I think summoner fans want to feel the presence and the awesomeness of their pets. allowing them to have more abilities will shift the focus more on the summon then the summoner. Besides IMO summoners are usually weaker (spell wise and hense summons). Pets have more dps abilities while summoners have support skills for pets? Could also have the two soul link. So when you summon a monster, your life will decrease or something. Having a boss kill your summon and then have to kill you too is not fair for him is it or your fellow team mates XD?

i think they should add both mechanics in to make each class unique. am i being greedy?

People need to realize that summoners are not complaining about the class being too week or something, it's a very good DPS, but its just not a summoner. I dont even care about summoners from other FF games, i understand that FFXIV is a different game with different lore, but the name "summoner" suggest that we will get a certain class, a class focused on... well, summons. Instead, we get a ranger class with a pet helping on the side, like you can see in many other mmorpgs. Its the same as we would get a class named "healer" but he wouldnt be focusing on healing and only had some small healing abilities.

1. Give us better looking summons. And no, it doesnt mean they have to be huge, Carbuncle and Scholars fairy are very small yet they look good.

2. Give us more control over our summons.

3. The focus of the whole class should be our summons. They should be dealing most of the dmg, they should have much more skills and we should be using them.

I was half way through my smn relic when I realized that I was always on scholar and never on summoner anymore. I ended up canceling my smn relic and restarting on scholar. I just wasn't willing to invest all that effort into Relic + 1 for a job I never want to play. Scholar feels right and is fun to play, and the design team did a great job on it.

This actually now reminds me of 1.0 had no Chocobo's or other key parts of FF lore, and that was a big part of why it flopped. This seems like the exact same mistake. I'll say it again you took something major from FF and replaced it with something from WoW, and you're seriously expecting FF fans not be disappointed? I can understand not adjusting this if we are just a vocal minority and game stats show the majority of people love summoner, but if it's a fail own up and make it into the job we know as summoner, and not 'the job formerly known as summoner.' :(

It's not hard to make the summoner better guys:
FIRST: "delete" that terrible AI, give us something like GAMBITS for summons, it's an rpg, it's supposed to focus on strategy and tactic.
SECOND: Give summons much more spells and heavily specialized, give for example ifrit and additional debuff that works on fester, garuda has that useful skill, give something different to titan, keep carbuncle and give us some improvements to it, we were arcanist right?
THIRD: Enkindle has a long cooldown and not enough damage output, I don't mean dps is low, but from a "limit break" of a summon I expect something HUGE, it would be nicer if the egi becomes a small primal temporary, do attack, do something else and then go back to what it was
FOURTH: Why on earth CHOCOBO is much more interactive and well done as a pet then SUMMONS? Really? The chocobo has a skill tree and can change from tank to healer to dps. I can't believe they didn't do something similar for the summoner.
FIFTH: Yea, move spells from summoner to summon, the summon must be our KEY, our FOCUS.
SIXTH: Why on earth can't I move the pet while I'm casting? I've done a summoner because I like handling two "entities", and the funny part is that I have to wait to move the pet somewhere while I'm casting (which indeed is the perfect moment).
For example, I'm casting my shadow flare (long cast time) on aoe on some mobs, why can't I say to my ifrit "ehy, stun that mob summoning an add!"?! That's insane, I have to stop shadow flare, click on the ifrit skill and restart casting shadow flare.

Why Summoner = Warlock? Because I have 3 debuffs, debuff sharing spells, my main source of damage is bio + bio 2 + miasma + fester, do you see any "SUMMONER THINGS" here? I don't think pet is weak, I do an insane amount of dps, but I would like to have my main source of damage an "interaction" with my pet, instead, my pet is just another debuff on the enemy.

Only enkindle is nice (aoe ifrit debuff being the most interesting), but with a 300 seconds cooldown, makes the funny part basically not existing.
Aetherflow is our "core gameplay mechanic", why it doesn't interact with our pet?

Scholars are much better well done than summoners, but I've already the relic and a very good equipment on it so I don't want to swap right now.
But really, summoner game design is really WEAK.

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Originally Posted by Ryuko

The most legitimate complaint/criticism that I hear involves the fact that summoner operates VERY similarly to an Affliction (DoT spec) warlock in WoW.

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As always, I'll be the one to say "something's gotta give". You can't blame the developers for wanting to go for a model that works over shooting darts on a board and hoping things don't end up broken or overpowered in the quest to be different for the sake of being different (firstly because relative balance is a million times more important in an MMORPG than in a single-player RPG). Then again, the fact PLD plays similarly to a WoW prot warrior does not bother me in the slightest, as Prot was a pretty solid tank design and that is all I could ask for in a tank.

I'm of the opinion some need to entirely let go of XI's SMN and the ones from older games (which boiled down to being Black Mages with spells that were flashier with some extra artwork and cost more MP) and understand MMORPGs require different designs and approaches than our beloved single-player console FFs.

I guess because the lack of healer, they designed SCH first and it worked very well.
When deciding to design SMN, they just taken the same model from SCH and thought: "Great, we can skip time and just do it that way".
Result is that we have now!

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Originally Posted by Duelle

As always, I'll be the one to say "something's gotta give". You can't blame the developers for wanting to go for a model that works over shooting darts on a board and hoping things don't end up broken or overpowered in the quest to be different for the sake of being different (firstly because relative balance is a million times more important in an MMORPG than in a single-player RPG). Then again, the fact PLD plays similarly to a WoW prot warrior does not bother me in the slightest, as Prot was a pretty solid tank design and that is all I could ask for in a tank.

I'm of the opinion some need to entirely let go of XI's SMN and the ones from older games (which boiled down to being Black Mages with spells that were flashier with some extra artwork and cost more MP) and understand MMORPGs require different designs and approaches than our beloved single-player console FFs.

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You must not call it SUMMONER so, this has been a huge mistake.
Also, affliction warlock has much more mechanics (and more funny) than the summoner actually, we have a really boring gameplay ^^

The feeling while playing this class is that the design was done in hurry.

I played thaumaturge, scholar and warrior and they are much more fun then the summoner actually (notice that I'm sorry for this).
And please don't tell me "play wow", I hate that game.

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Originally Posted by Arcari

Agree 100%.

The Summoner fanboys need to first get it through their heads that this is not FFXI, nor any other FF in the series.

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Then its simply not "Final Fantasy" (Summoner wise)

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You simply do not have the time to stand there and do your minute long incantation or draw your summoning circle to call out a massive pet of doom. You would go up against the very core of this game.

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The spells are not a minute long, and are made to summon pre battle. We also have Fast Cast for emergency use. When did a Summoner ever Draw Summoning Circles?

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Is the "reputation" of Summoner truly that important that people are willing to make 9001 topics on the "cool" factor?

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Its an Iconic job to the Final Fantasy series, So yes. Its not just the cool factor, its the feel of it, and gameplay style.

Feels like a Warlock in a summoners costume.

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How about just having a job that gets what it needs to done? Aside from UI issues, Summoner is good at what it needs to do in this game.

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The job is very effective, but its not summoner. A summoner performs through their pet. since Its called a Summoner not Arcane mage, its main thing should be Summon damage.

Imagine having a Black Mage that isnt efficient with Black magic? Imagine if ninja was implemented, but it played like samurai, but was still called ninja?

Just because its efficient doesnt mean its the Job.

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Also, more opinion: I like the fact that Summoner can hold its own in a fight if for whatever reason your egis are disabled. Self-sufficiency is awesome. Personally, I wouldn't want too much focus on the pet. 50/50 split at the very most.

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I think 80% of the damage should come from the pet. If my Summon dies, i should Bind, retreat, then re summon instead of finishing the fight on my own and summon afterwards.

what we have isnt Summoner, its a Arcane Mage/Warlock in a Summoners costume.


I thought the Point of Jobs was having a playstyle that depicts the name of the job? Thinking of the "Summoner" job now seems really silly.

@Engineer I agree with you obviously.
I would be happy to see all those bards do most of their damages in melee with a dagger instead of a ranged bow. Or all those blackmages doing damage through a pet instead of their huge spells.

And if this isn't enough think about this: I'll give you 5 classes where 4 are really nice classes to play while the fifth OWNS the others but to make it work is just: CLICK REPEATEDLY "A".
Would you like to choose the fifth or the others? You know what will happen? Everyone pick the fifth, they say the game is bad. If I change the fifth class is changed, games get better, otherwise game will loose all players in a bit.

Notice that this is not a random story, this happened on another well-known free to play mmorpg very recently, where one class was REQUIRED (at least 2 of them) in a party of 5 and they could have been both tank/healer and I heaered they are good dps too.

SE you got your feed back. SMN isn't completely done. Do something about it. ;;

one more time people need to think a bit more before ask for the impossible.

Summoner have 5 skill, you will need to wait a raise in level for see more of this jobs.
other point a class that rely only on pet in an mmorpg is bound to be useless in endgame content.

other point, the smn have a more complicate gameplay than blm or brd. people only see the dot cycle, but you can doo so much more than this.

(Sorry in advance for the wall of text)

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Originally Posted by Arcari

You want to know something funny? For whatever reason, it's always Summoner that always gets all the job fanatics up in a bunch...

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A few comments on the "fanaticism":
For a long time (in FFXI) it was only utilized as a gimped White Mage with a larger MP pool, and only a few AoE buffs gave it some sort of use of the avatars until they actually divided bloodpacts into two types.Summoner in XI was crippled for a very long time due largely due to damage output relative to MP consumption. Ironically, those mechanics would probably have a better synergy with the faster-paced FFXIV where we do not need to rest to restore our MP. Though as I understand it, Summoner seems to finally be getting some viable damage/use off of their pets, Avatar's Favor seemed like a good turning point...(continued)

BUT: FFXI seemed to fear magic in general, BLM definitely fell from its glory in the advent of TP burning parties, and last I knew they were only valued in specific scenarios to wipe monsters with small pools of HP instantly. Summoner was indeed staffed quite often, Alexander and Odin were a year late, and to date Atomos and Cait Sith are nowhere to be seen. Pet classes in general seem to be the ones that get the most bad press in MMO communities, they are admittedly difficult to balance.

But there is more to Summoner that perturbs me than my Egi's being innocuous-looking elementals. (Though, even if they were increased in size to match the Egi we fight in our mini-trial would make a world of difference!) Arcanist as a class was disadvantaged from the start because it had less window for feedback than the other classes from v1.0. We weren't even able to play the class in beta, so by launch, it seemed like we were beta testing this class and were entitled to our feedback...(continued)

I think the Dev team has been wonderful about communicating with the player base, but I am definitely disappointed with the response to this thread. There has been a vocal majority who have raised the same concerns repeatedly, and it seems issues with much less precedence from players have received attention.

At the very least, there should be a re-focus on where our damage is coming from. Since Summoner is linked to Arcanist, we simply aren't going to get rid of all the DoT mechanics of the class. But why do I have Fester? And why is Fester so much more available to me than Enkindle or other pet abilities?

Phew! I apologize again for the wall... But I definitely implore the Summoners who are dissatisfied with the class to keep vocal about it. The devs are listening to us, so keep at it!