Is summoner a badly designed class? does it get better?

I've only got my summoner to 56 so far, when ever I get a class to 30 I put every skill on my hotbar even though I can't use them yet just to get my muscle memory of where skills should be in place.

So at 56 it only really seems that I'm potentially missing out my Bahamut summon and some extra pet skills that come from being a higher level, all that are possibly tied down to long cooldowns?

My problem with the class so far is that it just feels like it's packed full of skills that either don't matter or are simply skills that accomplish nothing because it could be tied into another skill it self, let me give an example:

Fester, you can use this skill when you have Aetherflow, and ideally you want both Miasma and Bio on the enemy before using to max its damage, all very straight forward, but what's the point in Energy Drain? effectively it's just a 100 potency skill on a 30 second cooldown that allows you to use Fester (or the AoE Deathflare, but there's Energy Siphon for that which also has the same problem as Fester), when in reality Fester should just be a skill that has a 15 second cooldown and stacks up 2 times, and Energy Drain could just give fester 50 more potency to make up for that "dps loss" of such a weak skill anyway.

Other skills you may use is Bane once you've dotted enemies to use in AoE, Tri-Disaster is literally just Bio and Miasma but on an instant cast which I guess at best is mostly useful for using Bane in an AoE quickly or refreshing the dots on a boss quickly...

Then we have our 3 summons, my issue is that the 3 summons do nothing all that fantastic to warrent being considered its own skill and "taking" a spot on my hotbar, when in reality they all do weak damage with autos but allow you to use your 3 pet skills, 1 on a massive 180 second cooldown and is once again ridiculously average for damage, so lets say thats 6 skills that only give you access to 3 different effects, all of which involve pointing forward, no special skill effects from the player at all.

I don't know what to really think, I wanted to play BLM originally, got it to 66 but got kind of annoyed at how easy it felt to screw a BLM over in boss fights killing their dps rotation rather bad, tried summoner thinking it may be fun and so far its feeling like one of the most bland classes I've tried so far, I only tried it because of the endwalker skills trailer...but what are the cooldowns for all those skills? and again...does it actually get better as you get closer to 80?

Summoner is being significantly reworked in Endwalker. There are many times many YouTube videos thoroughly discussing the changes.

They're remaking Summoner a lot with the next expansion.
Can't really say much more than that since I haven't played SMN.

Its like every other job at 56 though :/
I love Summoner, but I hate it pre 70, but I feel the same way about many other jobs.

As a SMN main, I like where it's at now other than some minor things. I don't like the SMN changes, doesn't *look fun* but I guess I'll have to see after Endwalker.

Summoner will be completely different next month.

Summoner is CRIMINALLY bad at any level below 80

Like it teaches you very wrong habits with its skill acquisition that you basically have to unlearn when you get to the level it's meant to be played at (80).
It used to be worse during 5.0 too.


Egi assaults are there for weaving, movement, and to generate ruin IV (once you get it) so that you can either spend it for demi-bahamut for max wyrmwaves, or for movement (level 70 will make ruin IV feel so bad because you are given just enough to fit into your demi-bahamut phase and no more.) They do about the same damage as ruin III or outburst thanks to pet potency making their tooltips hard to read for some reason.

I will say, though, at level 80, SMN feels so damn groovy to play. At least for me. The rotation lines up super well with itself and the logic just clicks. I highly recommend, if you can, to try to play it at 80 before the rework, just to better understand SMN's weird journey through this game lol.


(Though, despite it being SUPER FUN AND SATISFYING TO PLAY, I would agree that it is a badly designed class. Because of the leveling progression I stated above, because the current design has hit a brick wall where it can't really go anywhere, and because its systems don't support the total feel of summoning gameplay. The fun is all very abstract instead of being tied to the fantasy of the job. Now, the rework doesn't improve it either, and in fact supports it LESS, but in both cases our big summon abilities are just cooldowns to wait for and not anything that we have to actively work towards achieving. We aren't summoners, we're waiters. We wait for cooldowns. Also, pets good, pet jank bad.)

Summoner is definitely one of those classes that really made me question just what they thought they were doing in terms of its aesthetic and mechanical design. I finished the Shadowbringers MSQ as one and in retrospect? I wish I had done so as Black or Red Mage instead.

I understand why one would want to try it out after watching the Endwalker trailer, but those changes will not be in the game until December 3rd. Until then, the job will still be...what it is. A poison mage unworthy of being called a Summoner. In contrast, the Summoner of Endwalker is so on point that the team is literally giving us Rydia's (FFIV) Summoner clothes as tome gear, which speaks to the general feel most people have about the rework. SMN will at last be a Final Fantasy Summoner.