SMN is now the least popular caster again barely one expansion after its rework

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Originally Posted by GumshoeJump

Everyone suggesting just adding another set of gem summons are driving me a little nuts actually! As if that's the problem with the job-- not enough variety in the meaninglessly different summons you have.

The core central issue with the job like a lot of others at the moment is the mechanics don't really mean anything. All the gem summons are just potency buttons that give you slightly different buttons to press. There's no prepping for the next step of your rotation like there was in 5.x. There's no real actual reason you have an egi/carbuncle companion, besides the fact that removing it is way more work than just leaving it as a dummy NPC. Ruin IV is a Joke. And energy drain feels like it only remains because it'd be embarrassingly obvious how little the job has to offer if you take it out. Additional gem summons are just more of the same and they'd feel just as insulting as solar bahamut did. Nothing in the kit feels like it needs anything else in the kit-- like toys laid out on a blanket instead of the components of a well-built piece of machinery.

But those mechanical reasons don't matter really-- though I suppose this is a symptom of those mechanical issues. The job just no longer fills a niche. Niches are actually really important! Niches get you dedicated players and people who will always stick with the job no matter whether or not it's meta. SMN used to fill the niche of a pet job alongside its DoT focus-- something you can't find anymore unless you count its healer counterpart. Now its only real distinguishing feature is the fact it has?? What? No seriously what does it have that no other caster has? Summons? Those are just loud aoe abilities that frequently don't go through because they're obligated to use a proxy to cast them. It has the demi-summons I guess? But those are glorified turrets that just need to come off cooldown-- they don't really feel like much. You don't have to approach them in a way that stands out from anything else in the game or even your own kit.

I just don't think the solution is something that will amount to no tangible change in how the job plays or interacts with its own kit. Without changing the above issues the only real solution is potency buffs which sound positively miserable as a solution; just creates an arms race between it and every other job currently suffering the same issue of being nicheless.

Maybe I'm biased but I do think old pet-job DoTmage SMN was the version of SMN that actually worked in an MMO. It's a job type I really like! I was sad when they decided everything I liked about the job was a horrible flaw in need of completely razing it to the ground and salting the earth about it.

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Could not agree more. Also just want to hug you.

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Originally Posted by GumshoeJump

Maybe I'm biased but I do think old pet-job DoTmage SMN was the version of SMN that actually worked in an MMO. It's a job type I really like! I was sad when they decided everything I liked about the job was a horrible flaw in need of completely razing it to the ground and salting the earth about it.

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Old SMN was a mix of DoT management along with pet management and commands through the egis you had. But people wanted SMN to "Feel like a FF summoner" which they referred to the one and done attacks. Instead what we have is a job with traces of its old rendition (the Egi pathing is a remnant of the pet variant now broken) and elements of FF16 Clive thrown in.

But Square Enix is deathly afraid of DoTs. They're actively finding ways and excuses to take them out of every class. The only one that might be safe is healers as that's the only other pure damage dealing move.
https://files.catbox.moe/rolw02.png

So now we have a quarter-baked summoner job where people invent ways to cope and be appreciative for being served a lackluster SMN experience where the amount of summons you have has barely changed. Something where the amount of job design creativity instead went to Picto. Adding something where at least SMN have actual more summons to work with will fill in that gap.

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Originally Posted by GumshoeJump

Everyone suggesting just adding another set of gem summons are driving me a little nuts actually! As if that's the problem with the job-- not enough variety in the meaninglessly different summons you have.

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I think most people are aware of this. But we are talking about ff14/cbu3 here. Having a new set of gem summons at least invoke a feeling of "have something new/different", even if it's just an illusion or meaningless.

Now I admit I'm not a DoT guy and imo "one and done" attack feels more like FF summoner than DoT mage. DoT in my mind is for Scholar. That being said, I also agree that (as usual), the devs took away too much of SMN original kit/DoT. If I were an old SMN main who likes DoT, I probably would've throw a fit seeing new SMN. I love SB AST, so I know that feeling too well.

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And on top of all that, they turned Summoner into yet another elemental mage. I suppose this is just my own personal preference, but I liked how arcanist was an "elemental neutral mage" of sorts.
I hate that all 4 DPS mage jobs chuck elemental spells for their "filler" gcds now

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Especially as elements are currently just an aesthetic in this game. Tbh even phys/magic damage types are almost completely merged as it “felt too unfair” that different tanks jobs or roles defend against a certain type of damage only.
Elements are engaging when they mean something. When you can use them based on the situation and see different results.

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Originally Posted by LoganMccree

There's a reason why jobs get gutted over and over again and funneled into the same style. It's because there are only a few job designers, and the entire playerbase and game must bow down to their idiosyncratic preferences. They don't design for you. They design for themselves. That's why healers were gutted first, because the job design team are DPS mains who hated that they had to use GCD heals and not do damage.

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That's the thing. Tanks were gutted first, because warriors straight up couldn't tank twintania, they turned warrior into paladin. AST was completely dead on arrival, and they spent most of HW and SB basically turning AST and SCH into WHM, because you need WHM's overpowered kit to heal the absolutely bonkers outgoing damage. There is no skill in deciding to use Medica 1 in FFXIV, but with the sheer amount of aoes going out, it's literally the only answer.

They homogenized their fight design down to the point where cast bars are a liability, in a game where the game's godawful netcode is a serious limitation, and then put in fights that are miserable anywhere above about 15ms ping.

They demonstrably don't test the game above a direct connection to the game server, because there's no way in hell M5S would have been considered fine if they tested it at 200ms ping, especially when I've run into players complaining about it at a mere 60ms ping compared to whatever god-tier connection they have that's normally better than 60. Hell, they certainly don't test it on every job, because even trying to find 3s of time to cast slipstream as summoner is a nightmare in M5S, and it wouldn't take much to realize funky floor 1's spotlights are a nightmare for the second person if you have to cross the map as any caster. 'Just use movement!' And do WHAT exactly for ensemble immediately after?

Their head is buried so deep in the sand that they don't even realize that they're off the coast of brazil right now, and their 'encounter improvements' are actively driving the game off a cliff because of these problems and more.

Watch the devs adding DoTs and other lacking nuances people been complaning about to the new Limited (Scam) Job instead of a proper job in the game. Because apparently only these fake jobs can have the nice stuff.

I'm a shadowbringers baby and I leveled arcanist mostly for SCH so I don't really remember much about SMN before the rework. But I feel like there was still a way to introduce the fantasy of "summoning many primals" while still keeping the pet and DoT mechanics.
Like how PCT has to draw different murals for tools with different purpose (movement, oGCD damage, raid buff), SMN could've had one of its DoTs tied to an egi, its raidbuff tied to another, another for free movement in exchange for damage, another that has access to shielding and slight healing capabilities, etc.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Mind you, I don't know how true that was for players trying to wrangle them back then, but Square-Enix seemed convinced that the carbuncle and fairy had mechanics that didn't bode well in their eyes for future encounters. Which, given what we've seen encounter design turn into... yeah, the pet changes of then are like the BLM changes of today. The excessive amount of required movement, in SE's opinion, would make trying to multi-task with a pet *and* DoTs sound like a nightmare as far as they're concerned.

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The primary issue was just that pets would frequently not use abilities when ordered to, which was especially an issue on SCH in harder content, and CS3 will always opt to remove things instead of fixing them if given the choice.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

The primary issue was just that pets would frequently not use abilities when ordered to, which was especially an issue on SCH in harder content, and CS3 will always opt to remove things instead of fixing them if given the choice.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Mind you, I don't know how true that was for players trying to wrangle them back then, but Square-Enix seemed convinced that the carbuncle and fairy had mechanics that didn't bode well in their eyes for future encounters. Which, given what we've seen encounter design turn into... yeah, the pet changes of then are like the BLM changes of today. The excessive amount of required movement, in SE's opinion, would make trying to multi-task with a pet *and* DoTs sound like a nightmare as far as they're concerned.

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The pets were at worst finnicky in ShB if you didn't understand the underlaying logic of how they would position themselves and behave. A carbuncle's failure to attack was owed to-- depending on the dog-- either prioritizing movement, or being placed directly under the boss. A demi-summon's failure to not ghost an attack was owed to movement and server ping (they wanted to stand at your intercards so bad). A lot of the response issues also got smoothed out for Egis when egi-commands were readjusted into gcds, so the Egi would deal with less demand on its AI. Poor things got confused real easily.

I rarely played SCH back when SMN was good, because I was busy enjoying myself-- but should I recall the solution to faeries failing to respond was to place them near the center of the arena so they'd stop trying to follow you, since they prioritized movement for some reason.

The pet management was fairly rewarding to me, honestly. It made my companion feel alive and like something I was working alongside. And it was never too difficult to manage them alongside my DoTs-- thanks to the way tri-disaster was refunded everytime I went into a trance; refreshing them wasn't an issue at all. They absolutely would not conflict with movement even a little, and I think the idea they could is perfectly absurd.

I remember when egi could die and you had to mindful in certain fight of their placement.
To recast was not a trivial amount of time and you would want to swift it.