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

Really, only two real changes that I'd make:

1.) Pet glamours. (Rather than summoning Titan as a tank pet and Garuda as a ranged DPS pet, or example, you could summon any of your Egis as tank, melee DPS, or ranged DPS. The skills would change accordingly; for example, using Enkindle on a tank Garuda-Egi would result in an Aerial Blast that works like Earthen Fury and perhaps has a hurricane-like visual, whereas Landslide on a ranged DPS Titan-Egi might be replaced with an action called Land's Wrath with the same effect as Contagion.) This would simplify the process of adding new Egis.

2.) Spell speed causes DoTs to tick faster. Boom, itemization crisis solved.

Chime in for visual buff, and rather than retcon (that's poo-poo) evolution sounds excellent. On terms of previous FF games, there is little to say- FFXIV's summoner is not like any of its predecessors (summons visually). There is certainly an issue of too big for an mmorpg, or too detailed but that would be the second point - WoW's Warlock which is a similar idea to ARR's has a much larger variance and size than FFXIV's (imp to giant infernal, and evolution options), or Aion which are fairly complex and varied as well.

So, imo SE should seriously consider evolution as a way to avoid retcon, to improve fanfare to something clearly jumped ship, and to compete with other mmorpgs. Lore wise so long as summoners don't pull a full primal out of their booty we're good, we've already seen a summoner summon a slightly different egi with elder-primal essence or familiar (carby) - so the idea there are other forms/things is not weird and not immediately against the lore. The idea of logical progression does mean SE doesn't want to give players most epic thing immediately as they'd lose that as an option in future contents/expansions, but as of right now we're at something incomparable to other FF and non-competitive even at relative starting frames of said example games (WoW/Aion). Having both of those traits seem to be undesirable- start the evolution please ;_;/.

I really disappointed when they dont make Diablos from FF VIII as a primal, I think I fought him at Andapor

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Originally Posted by AriaEnia

I really disappointed when they dont make Diablos from FF VIII as a primal, I think I fought him at Andapor

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For me it was Fenrir. I played FF11 and having Fenrir was a thing. I was sad to see him be just a dungeon boss.

1. Remove contigation from garuda and replace it with a small damage buff or pet dot, and then shaft spur(look at the description, it's got little use compared to rouse) for said contigtion.

2. Remove the aetherflow mechanic from fester. Seriously, the big damage is on a double cool down.

3. Makes enkindle more usable like flare. You guys have all heard of the almighty triple flare right?

4. Give ruin a slight buff. 80 potency doesn't do much of anything. Bump it up to 100 potency at least.

5. Make spell speed a relevant stat on arcanist all together. Yes we know arcanist was rushed, but you should at least try to fix it.

5. Tweak the pet AI so they will dodge ground-targeted aoes.

6. Shiva egi, and Pheonix-egi in 3.0. 'nuff said.

You said what i really wish for... i like your idea!

I was a Summoner but changed to Ninja... well Nin feels like a dancer sometimes but really hate small summons more than nin's /dance actions..

Love ninjutsu though ;)

*amused* Started reading through this topic, then ran into some confusing AI comments that didn't make sense... until I checked the date of those posts ^^;

But yes, some of these complaints are quite valid, and it's disappointing to see that there's been very little development in this regard. Well, none that we've been made aware of, at least.

There has been mentionings of adjusting the class/job system with the expansion, so I'm hoping some of these issues will be taken care of. I'm also hoping they've changed their mind about 'evolving' egis, where you gradually grow strong enough to handle slightly more powerful egis -- not necessarily stat-wise, since that comes from your own gear/level anyway, but represented by the egis looking slightly more like their primal counterparts. (In detail/design, that is, not necessarily size.)

I do wish for a better AI/Gambit system, though I do realize that would likely take a lot of development time to figure out how to implement. Just something as 'simple' as "avoid floor AoEs" means the client will have to continuously check "where's the egi right now? is that area targeted by an AoE? If yes, move egi in a random direction until that is no longer the case. Is there a wall/obstacle in the way? Change direction by X degrees." and so on and so forth.

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Originally Posted by Tupsi

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Originally Posted by Talsalus

summoned pets disappearing... they should just abandon target and come to you if you get to far.

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That'd be like FFXI and people would hate that.

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This is actually an issue that still exists, and I can't see why 'people would hate it' if your egi broke Stay/Place commands (or stopped chasing monsters you're not fighting...) if you moved beyond summoning range instead of just desummoning.
I'm not the best SMN, far from it, and I'll readily admit it. But far too often I've run through dungeons as SMN, placed my Garuda during a boss fight, and after we've won and gone on, only realizing during the next mob fight that my party list only has four members instead of five...

So basically, instead of Garuda going, "Oh, my summoner has abandoned me. I'm unwanted. *poof*" I'd like her to go, "Oh, my summoner ran away somewhere. I need to go find them. *hurries after SMN*"

Same with attacking enemies (especially chickenyellow, fleeing ones) and running too far away. Though in that case, I currently imagine her going, "Oh no! I'm lost! Woe is me... *returns to the aether to mope*" ¬_¬



Another thing that really, really bugs me is the random placement of Sic/Obey skills on the pet hotbar. For Garuda and Titan (and the Carbies/Faeries), their auto-attack is #1, with #2-4 being the ones turned off by Obey. On Ifrit, however, the auto-attack is #2, with #1, #3 and #4 being the ones turned off by Obey. What gives? O.o

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Originally Posted by AriaEnia

I really disappointed when they dont make Diablos from FF VIII as a primal, I think I fought him at Andapor

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This made me really sad too. Diablos should be a primal.

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Originally Posted by AriaEnia

I really disappointed when they dont make Diablos from FF VIII as a primal, I think I fought him at Andapor

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Seconded, Fenrir as well. They used classic summons as mere dungeon bosses then had to make up their own primal for the expansion per their words, "We ran out of the classics to use." I mean it's fun and all to see something familiar to be used in dungeons but I feel their original ideas are better suited for the end boss there.

better hate moves for Titan-Egi for those situations where the Tank is down and you need something to help while the tank is recovering so you don't lose the whole fight

Summoners need a smaller cooldown on Enkindle (way way way smaller, seriously what is the reasoning behind it being so high when it's weaker than Fester?) a better means of maintaining their MP that doesn't cut into their DPS and a better burst option that doesn't require such a long ramp up time (BLMs get sustain, burst and AOE damage so I don't want anyone arguing it would be OP for SMNs to have the same).

In terms of general balancing though the egis need to be redesigned to fit specific roles. When 3.0 comes out we are getting two new pets. Unless they change the way the pets are designed these new pets will either immediately render all the previous ones obsolete or garuda will still be superior and the new ones will be dead on arrival... They need roles. We need pets suited to tanking, single target burst, aoe damage, crowd control, etc. Without dedicated roles there will always be one 'go to' pet...

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Originally Posted by Kio

Seconded, Fenrir as well. They used classic summons as mere dungeon bosses then had to make up their own primal for the expansion per their words, "We ran out of the classics to use." I mean it's fun and all to see something familiar to be used in dungeons but I feel their original ideas are better suited for the end boss there.

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The justification for this from the player base that I've heard is that they've only really been important summons in Final Fantasy XI because of Celestial and Terrestrial Avatars and the lore in XI itself. Diabolos the keeper of dreams and sleep, and Fenrir the most powerful Terrestrial avatar that was a combination of all the other Avatar's power. Both were only really important in XI, and I understand this myself having made SMN my one 99 job and having played it to end-game. They just haven't had important enough roles in any other games to be suited to be more than dungeon bosses in XIV.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

I believe that balancing pet classes is a nightmare.
But I also believe that just because one job functioned a certain way in previous games doesn't mean it will function the same now.

However if you are going to implement summoner in the coolest and most iconic way. Summoner should be a spike damage pet class just as it was in most FF. This should take precedence over lore or current systems. Change the lore, separate summoner from arcanist if that has to happen. My friend thought it was stupid and sad she couldn't level summoner from level 1 anyways.

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Balancing a DoT class is impossible no MMORPG developer has balanced them at high levels of play not even Blizzard. Look what happen to Warlock after Catacysm their population plummeted at high levels and end game.

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Originally Posted by Brianmj

I don't want to heal your pets. That's your responsibility.

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Yeah.. because Summoner healing is so effective.

I'm not talking about Ifrit or Garuda. It would mostly be for situations when Titan is being used as a tank. Summoner heals are far too weak to be of any use in keeping Titan alive against dungeon mob groups and bosses. Obviously this would be a situation that was either planned from the get-go, or in emergency cases when a tank dies or otherwise disappears. Still, when Titan is being used as a tank, healers have no way to target him unless they mouse over (PC) and manually click him, which suffice to say is a huge pain in the butt. I'm not even sure if they added a way for Titan to be targeted by PS3/4 users, but I imagine it would be even more of a pain in the butt. (I play on PC)

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Originally Posted by Ecks007

Yeah.. because Summoner healing is so effective.

I'm not talking about Ifrit or Garuda. It would mostly be for situations when Titan is being used as a tank. Summoner heals are far too weak to be of any use in keeping Titan alive against dungeon mob groups and bosses. Obviously this would be a situation that was either planned from the get-go, or in emergency cases when a tank dies or otherwise disappears. Still, when Titan is being used as a tank, healers have no way to target him unless they mouse over (PC) and manually click him, which suffice to say is a huge pain in the butt. I'm not even sure if they added a way for Titan to be targeted by PS3/4 users, but I imagine it would be even more of a pain in the butt. (I play on PC)

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from PS4 you can mouseover click him, too....
but yes, it's still a pain >_>

They also need to adjust pet accuracy requirements for summoner. Pet needs more than the actual player but food doesn't affect pets so the summoner has to have a higher base accuracy to start with. And most gear is poorly optimized for summoner for some reason. Even our books which we don't share with blm like we do with everything else. It really feels sometimes like they aren't even aware of how summoner actually works, even though they made the game.

Ok these are specifically for ifrit-egi

1. Radiant Shield: Makes it counter ALL damage

2. Makes his damage scale with magic attack, and NOT physical attack.

3. Alternative to 2: Increase Burning strike from 120 to 180, and flaming crush from 110 to 160. This is because the damage difference between garuda and ifrit is so small that the difference doesn't amount to anything. At this rate, garuda will rise to be better than ifrit in damage as the intelligence stat increases with each patch where as physical attack power stays stagnant.

You guys rock :) there is once again good ideas around.

To add my little coin in the idea pool, I would get rid of the restriction with bane and its 3 targets only, today the game is way older and mechanics / players habits evolved a lot... There is many examples of why it is stupid that bane is ridiculously underpowered when it come to aoe as smn -.-; it doesn't even touch all adds during Shiva HM/EX xD and it is also why SMN is rejected from speed runs, taking a BLM is quicker when it come to trashs zerg.

By the way, I was wondering... Is there any similar threads in the JP board about SMN?
Being ignored for months in the English section seems somehow "legit" I guess but what about Japanese players?

Best thing to do is to bump all the smn related threads so SE knows there's people out there wanting it to be sorted.

For the most part, I love playing SMN. However, there are four main things that I think need changed. One is the MP. I think they could easily fix this by giving SMN (only SMN, not SCH) a trait that ups the percentage for Aetherflow. They could also add a special proc, that everytime SMN uses Aetherflow, there's a chance of getting a free Energy Drain. Meaning, it doesn't take away a stack, it's totally free.

Enkindle needs a shorter cool down.

Contagion needs to be a SMN skill, not a Garuda skill.

Finally, change Tri-Disaster to be useful for something other than Frontlines.

Summoner should continue to use Carbuncle as the pet and have the Primals as cooldowns for a special ability, similar to how Ultima Weapon uses primal power. Carby would have Contagion, so there would be no favored Primal. This would eliminate Egis, but would that really make anyone sad? Primals should also have better interaction with DoTs and help with AoE capabilities.

Just some ideas:


Ifrit - Radiant Plume: a fire attack that adds a burning DoT. This is also included on Fester's list of DoTs that will empower it further.

Garuda - Mistral Shriek: AoE magic attack that lowers enemy resistance against DoT effects.

Titan - Geo Crush: Drains a % of damage dealt as MP. Amount of MP drained increases based on the amount of active DoTs.

Leviathan - Tidal Roar: moderate damage and creates a whirlpool around the target that draws in surrounding enemies. Good for setting up Bane or other AoE.

Ramuh - Rolling Thunder: main target suffers moderate damage which chains to surrounding enemies for small damage. Damage increases based on the number of enemies struck by the chain.

Shiva - Heavenly Strike: high single target damage and freezes the countdown timer on all active DoTs for 5 secs.

Enkindle: self buff that allows the next Primal Summon to use their signature attack for massive damage.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

/slashu

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maybe having each egi out affecting your summoner skills in some way? having ifrit out makes your attacks have more pottency but with maybe slight less duration, this increasing the ammoung ot mp that aetherflow generates as well *also they need to make ifrit a bit more durable..* , having gauda increases the duration of dots and maybe a really small bonus to mp regeneration with each tick *in a small aoe perhaps?*, titan reduces the enmity you generate.. *still being a solo egi XD*

making them more than just pets, having an egi summoned being a pet and also a stance to use.

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Originally Posted by Silkerin

maybe having each egi out affecting your summoner skills in some way? having ifrit out makes your attacks have more pottency but with maybe slight less duration, this increasing the ammoung ot mp that aetherflow generates as well *also they need to make ifrit a bit more durable..* , having gauda increases the duration of dots and maybe a small bonus to mp regeneration with each tick, titan reduces the enmity you generate.. or something...

making them more than just pets, having an egi summoned being a pet and also a stance to use.

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Well, my thought was that the Carbuncles already have a good setup of "pet" capabilities. Primals don't need to be pets. They can be a summon that only materializes for their attack and then goes on cooldown. A Summoner can continue to have Carbuncle as their pet while utilizing the power of Primal summons for burst damage and support.

The way they are designed, there is no possible living way I want more spells and the SMN job more focused on the pet than it already is.
Have you ever experienced pressing Contagion 7 times and the spell not getting casted? Now, Imagine that with 4-5 more spells. Might as well change the job "Summoner" for "Frustratoner". Of course, if they fixed pet spells and made them more responsive I wouldn't have a problem then.

What I would really like them to do about SMN is:

1 - Possibly make the design of the summons a bit cooler (yes, the summons look terrible now..., though this doesn't concern me as hard as other people).
2 - Fix the mana problem.
3 - Make food affect both SMN and pet (<- this should've happened months ago not sure what the hell are they even thinking...?).

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Well, my thought was that the Carbuncles already have a good setup of "pet" abilities. Summoner can still make use of Carbuncle for steady damage and have access to primal summons for separate powerful attacks rather than as pets.

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the thing is people REALLY want the classical shiva ifrit titan summons out, and we arent going to have that, so we get the egis, having the carbuncle as the pet and just moves from the primals as complementary.. people will really not like that

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Originally Posted by Silkerin

the thing is people REALLY want the classical shiva ifrit titan summons out, and we arent going to have that, so we get the egis, having the carbuncle as the pet and just moves from the primals as complementary.. people will really not like that

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Either way, people aren't getting the classic summons. They get Egis. And people complain about having Egis. At least this gives the power to summon the likeness of a Primal even if temporarily, and it keeps from having one summon that is always better than the rest. I think there are actually a lot of players who would like to have continued access to Carby as a SMN. Regardless, you can never please anyone all the time. Any sort of change will have people complaining just as much as they do now.

This job is dead until they completely make them like in past games (excluding FFXI). They need to be in they were in FFV-FFX

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

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I like how these all work for the example abilities.

One very strong point that is being brought up a lot, is this:
Let Summoners rotate what Primal they're using to make it a unique encounter to encounter Job that stays fresh because it's constantly shuffling up how it plays.

It would probably end up being the most dynamic job in this game for years to come if it actually ended up working like that, and no one should be against having a Job that can adapt and change based on the fight it's in at the time.

One small thing I liked in XI personally to bring it up for a sec, was the days of the week. Firesday, Iceday, and so on, the names weren't hugely creative, but they played a very important role with Summoners. Each day would have a respective element tied to it, so if it was Firesday, and you summoned and used Ifrit, his MP Perpetuation cost would be lowered, and he would do more overall damage. Meaning you could have him out for longer, and he would be a lot more powerful on that day. While conversely, Shiva would be weakened on Firesday. This was made true for all the Avatars.

We really do need something like this for Summoner considering the eventual repertoire of summons we will have, there needs to be a nice setup of swapping them around to be as effective as possible in the field so we're always using the best one for the situation.

Summoner needs the enkindle cooldown shortened. Also the animation for enkindle needs to be spiced up. Get the egi or something a bit better have some flashy move.

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Originally Posted by Ghastly

This job is dead until they completely make them like in past games (excluding FFXI). They need to be in they were in FFV-FFX

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... a 1-4 min unskippable cutscene everytime one is cast?

i love this thread
i love your ideas for the egis
if they implemented some of your ideas i might even play summoner

They are not going to make Egis the size of the Primals, or even half their size. It's impractical from a screen space point of view and would obscure a great deal of critical information, to the extent that Summoners would basically be excluded from raiding.

What you may see happen is Summoner call forth a full size Primal for LB3 when job-specific limit breaks are implemented in 3.0, but that's about it.

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Originally Posted by Razard

... a 1-4 min unskippable cutscene everytime one is cast?

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They don't need a cut-scene, immediate cast (2-15 seconds long) but the damage is huge. It won't be black mage (mind you WHM has a huge damage aoe as well). It will be a big burst summoning while their main skills should prepare the summoning by applying poisons that have different effects depending on the summon.

It's a tough challenge. I get why Yoshi P and the Dev Team decided to give us Egis (tiny representations that aren't really the actual beings):

* The render / stress on the servers would be too great, if say, hundreds of players all pulled out their High Detailed Summons (like a Real Ifrit or Shiva) (w/ High Poly, High Res Textures, VFX).
* From a story point-of-view it's a challenge: How do you get to "control / summon" Ifrit, and yet you're fighting him repeatedly in, say, Ifrit EX to farm stuff? etc.

But ultimately, I'd say, as a Final Fantasy fan, XIV's version of a "Summoner" is *nothing* like what I equate in my mind with what "Summoners" were in past Final Fantasy games. I know it's an MMORPG, but XIV's Summoner is just a DOT-applying Job. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i...lies/frown.png

The DOT-casting Job could've been renamed something else and it'd be fine.

I wish XIV's "Summoner" could be revamped to be something closer to what you might expect from a Final Fantasy Summoner, within the confines of an MMORPG of course. If the actual *Summon* (Creature) is the same across all races, then making *1* special Animation (for their "Big Attack" (like PLD's Hallowed Ground, WHM's Benediction, etc.)) per Summon wouldn't be too bad. That would make it stand out (and move it away from just DOTs). Just my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Fiaryn

They are not going to make Egis the size of the Primals, or even half their size. It's impractical from a screen space point of view and would obscure a great deal of critical information, to the extent that Summoners would basically be excluded from raiding.

What you may see happen is Summoner call forth a full size Primal for LB3 when job-specific limit breaks are implemented in 3.0, but that's about it.

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Which is why I suggested Carbuncle remain a pet while Primals become brief spells similar to the way Ultima Weapon uses them.

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Originally Posted by Kiara

* From a story point-of-view it's a challenge: How do you get to "control / summon" Ifrit, and yet you're fighting him repeatedly in, say, Ifrit EX to farm stuff? etc.

I wish XIV's "Summoner" could be revamped to be something closer to what you might expect from a Final Fantasy Summoner, within the confines of an MMORPG of course. If the actual *Summon* (Creature) is the same across all races, then making *1* special Animation (for their "Big Attack" (like PLD's Hallowed Ground, WHM's Benediction, etc.)) per Summon wouldn't be too bad. That would make it stand out (and move it away from just DOTs). Just my opinion.

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A brief summon for individual Primal attacks would be fine story-wise. Egis are a sliver of aetherial power that hold the likeness of the associated Primal. Being able to materialize a Primal's power into physical form to unleash a single attack isn't that different.

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Originally Posted by Ghastly

They don't need a cut-scene, immediate cast (2-15 seconds long) but the damage is huge. It won't be black mage (mind you WHM has a huge damage aoe as well). It will be a big burst summoning while their main skills should prepare the summoning by applying poisons that have different effects depending on the summon.

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So not like ff 5-10 at all then?

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Originally Posted by Razard

So not like ff 5-10 at all then?

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Well, 5 and 6 didn't have lengthy summons they were brief spells. 7, 8 and 9 had the cutscenes but a majority of them weren't 1-4 minutes as you had said. FFX had persistent summons with a grand finale.

I think Ghasty was just suggesting that primals act more as a summon spell than as a persistent pet, which would be more like earlier Final Fantasy titles.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Well, 5 and 6 didn't have lengthy summons they were brief spells. 7, 8 and 9 had the cutscenes but a majority of them weren't 1-4 minutes as you had said. FFX had persistent summons with a grand finale.

I think Ghasty was just suggesting that primals act more as a summon spell than as a persistent pet, which would be more like earlier Final Fantasy titles.

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So like Black mages with more particle effects.

Jeez what do you people want?

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Originally Posted by Razard

So like Black mages with more particle effects.

Jeez what do you people want?

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Are you going to add anything constructive to the thread or are you just here to be negative and try to pick a fight?