Necromancer Identity Crisis

So, I'm just wondering when SE is going to do its big reveal and we "suddenly" discover that the class we thought was Summoner the whole time was actually Necromancer.

I realize SE's still rolling out a lot of new jobs, but I have to be honest, I'm kind of getting anxious for an actual summoner job.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the aspects of the current "Summoner"*cough*Necromancer*cough* Job as far as DPS goes, but I would really like to get at least an estimate of when they're going to add Summoner to the game.

I think most of us at this point realize the current "Summoner" class is actually Necromancer - especially given the spell names (Miasma, Bane, Painflare, Deathflare, etc.).

Come on, SE. Throw us a bone here. ;)

Well for starters... if you mean the FFXI Summoner... no you'll never see that, because that was just a piece of Dog Doo Doo to actually play.

If you mean will we get a ton of different pets again no... there's no elemental wheel, so you can't whip out a fire pet to melt an Ice vulnerable mob... etc... so only the pet that does the most damage for a DPS class will ever get used... the rest will just be bench warmers.

If you mean can they change the pretty pictures and descriptions of the abilities for shallow people who just want to look at shinies... well... YES actually they could technically do that. They could change the theme... which would include a graffics and naming convention change and those types of people would never even know the difference other than that it suddenly and mysteriously looks kewl.

Right now as a SMN I am using the FF Summon attacks in Garuda's Aerial Blast, Bahamut's Teraflare (aka Deathflare), and Ifrit's Inferno attack with Enkindle. (And actually I don't because Ifrit's damage doesn't really compete with Garuda's with regards to my other abilities).

But I do wonder why its consistently other jobs that are asking for a wholescale rework of the job... rather than the people who actually play it for real at the highest levels.

You can't throw a stone in this game without hitting a Summoner of some kind, its obviously pretty popular. And I can vouch for its power and viableness as a class.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

And I can vouch for its power and viableness as a class.

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The usual complaint isn't that it's too weak, but that it more closely resembles the Warlock in Blizzard's World of Warcraft than anything from the Final Fantasy series and that the pet is somewhat vestigial (HW only reinforced this by moving more power away from SMN/SCH's pets and onto the characters themselves).

Then add to that... the job is all about spreading sicknesses and the like. That's not very much like summoners of the series.

So, a lot of players want something more in the spirit of the series' summoners. However, SE's made it pretty clear they're not a fan of pet jobs and we likely only have sch/smn because of the demand back in the 1.0 days' polls. SE has diminshed the relevance of pets, although it's still there, and in a recent interview Yoshi even went as far as to strongly hint he regretted putting SMN in at all.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

The usual complaint isn't that it's too weak, but that it more closely resembles the Warlock in Blizzard's World of Warcraft than anything from the Final Fantasy series and that the pet is somewhat vestigial (HW only reinforced this by moving more power away from SMN/SCH's pets and onto the characters themselves).

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Is there something wrong with that?

Have you guys ever read the horror stories of the old ARR players regarding the original SMN pre-50th before Heavensward?

Yeah no one wanted to play it, the BLM could outdamage it in all circumstance. Both in Single Target and AoE. Consequently it was relegated to the scrap heap and few played it or just outright switched to BLM because the SMN just wasn't viable in comparison.

And on top of that... in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM... does a "pet class" version of a SMN come anywhere near the Traditional FF Summoner... no matter which game you look at...

FF VII
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvErgY6HpX8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1no4OdDult4

FF Tactics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhUwX-AI4cs

FF3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyWMyfh1iPY

In other words...

No... its always in all FF games treated as more of a BLM style really flashy Nuke... not as some pet who stays with you all the time and a power inherent to the Summoner... not as some pet

This version of the FF Summoner is actually closer by letting the SMN itself use the powers... not by making the pet use them.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Is there something wrong with that?

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This was already answered: A lot of people are not happy with FFXIV's vision of summoner, so yes, a lot of people see something wrong with that.

And even when SMN was about flashy nukes... you still don't see them spreading diseases and contagion and such.

I don't think anyone mentioned that Summoner has to be a pet job strictly? A very popular iteration was FFX's, for example. That said, as a separate issue from "summoner", a lot of people also aren't satisfied with a pet job that has a very weak pet.

Of course, you're right that Tanaka disliked SMN even more than Yoshi apparently does. He also made the FFXI Summoner very weak. But that's an attribute of individual producers/game leads, not something inherent to the design.

If you're happy with it as is, and some people are, then good for you. A lot of people like World of Warcraft's Warlock too. But these things are commonly the basis for the complaints you see.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

This was already answered: A lot of people are not happy with FFXIV's vision of summoner, so yes, a lot of people see something wrong with that.

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Why NO... actually they ARE happy with it.

You can't throw a stone in this game without hitting a SMN or an SCH for that matter. Its an extremely popular Job... as is...

But now you're getting into the other question I talked about in my above post...

If you mean can they change the pretty pictures and descriptions of the abilities for shallow people who just want to look at shinies... well... YES actually they could technically do that. They could change the theme... which would include a graffics and naming convention change and those types of people would never even know the difference other than that it suddenly and mysteriously looks and sounds kewl.

I can't help but wonder why its consistently WHMs and those that play support jobs that are asking for this... Are you Sure its not because you want that old half assed white mage posing as a Summoner from FFXI that just looked Kewl while getting its butt handed to it?

Silver, I just want to point out that your initial argument was that we shouldn't be worried over cosmetics in a video game, which is by its definition wholly cosmetic. It's ludicrous.

If you're only interested in pulling numbers, then you might want to invest in a mathematics course - you'll get more out of it. All DPS pull numbers - how they do it is the variety and flash that makes them actually interesting. Otherwise why not just go basic Destiny style and have a single Tank, Healer, and DPS class and call it a day?

The whole point is that Summoner should actually feel like a Summoner. The team that's in charge of that right now isn't doing that.

Is there a reason that you're so attached to the Summoner title that you have to have your Necromancer job called a Summoner as opposed to having your Necromancer job called a Necromancer (or Warlock, if you're so inclined)?

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Are you Sure its not because you want that old half assed white mage posing as a Summoner from FFXI that just looked Kewl while getting its butt handed to it?

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Liked because of the awesomness of this sentence lol

Two other items:

I do also play Summoner. Mine is level 60. It doesn't live up to its predecessors in previous games.

Also, the plural of anecdotes is not data. You say that plenty of people are perfectly happy with it as-is. I can tell you that I'm not the only one that disagrees.

You deciding that there's no problem isn't the same as there being no problem. It just means that you like Necromancer/Warlock.

The biggest problem with the idea of a "traditional" summoner is that there's no firm guideline for it. FF12, anyone could summon. FF10, you had a White Mage that could also summon. FF9, two White Mages that could also summon. FF8 and 7, anybody could summon (and the game was pretty loose with "jobs" to begin with). FF6, anyone could summon. FF4, your "summoner" was mostly just a Black Mage tied to summons for plot. 3 and 5 are the only ones to have something a bit more dedicated, and they're still just abilities to use.

So, to make a "traditional" summoner, do you just scrap what we have and build a class with abilities tied to "summoning" (where the complaints shift to "not powerful enough" or "combos don't make sense" or "why can't I just summon my favorite thing over and over" or anything else because we'll complain about literally anything)? Do you scrap the egis we have and just turn "summons" into oGCD skills with long cooldowns/expensive costs to simulate how summons were used in most games?

Because looking back, it seems pretty silly to expect Summoner to be any sort of pet-based job. Summons are nukes, and so mostly have to be re-imagined. And it seems ridiculous to complain about that change in particular when you stop to consider the entirety of the combat system (which actually was somewhat consistent through the iterations) has to be completely redesigned to work in an MMO.

Moral of the story, summons are fun, but ultimately just spells with special visual effects. Maybe we'd all be better served by petitioning to have the name changed instead of the job as a whole. Which is the whole point of the thread. Just so we're clear that I'm circling around here.