A Summoner Main's request for Summoner: More complexity, yet kept simple.

It's posting time.

Hello, my name is Sharina Leaf, and I'm an unironic summoner enjoyer. I enjoyed pre-EW summoner, and I enjoy it now. I'm sure certain members of the community might scoff at the latter, but I do find the act of choosing which color legos to eat before pressing a special Rite to be a very fun way to learn a fight. It's engaging, rewarding to get right, and feels fun to have different varieties of casting times with them (As minimal as those are.)

What I -don't- like is how DT did virtually nothing to build on the simple, yet open to further expansion job that EW Summoner was. There is so much untapped potential in upgrading this job further, to ensure further complexity down the line to entice players to learn and grow into this job, yet the only thing we got was an extra heal during 1/2 of our demis, and an extra OGCD after Searing Light. We've got the fantasy down of summoning big guys to hit our enemies, now let's focus on making that feel *better*.

I will be proposing a few additions/changes to Summoner here forward. You may agree with some, disagree with others, want more, want less, but they're here. I've heard that the devs read forum posts, and I unironically hope they read this one. This will be a 3 part post, as clearly my feelings are too long for just one part. Please enjoy.

1: Return alternating Demi casts
Back in Shadowbringers, we were gifted Phoenix, an upgrade to Bahamut that provided a partywide regen on cast, a single target regen as an "Astral flow" (Wasn't called that back in the day), and stronger potencies across the board. To go further, it was given unique casts that you had to press in an alternating fashion, replacing Ruin 3 and Tri-Disaster. Those unique casts still exist today, but are no longer used in the same way, as now they're just "the single target button" and "the multi-target button". I think that's a shame, and simplifies a job further than it needed to be. I propose bringing that system back to not only Phoenix, but also the other two Demi's we have. Now that Bahamut and Astral Bahamut also have their own casts, I think the same treatment can be given to them seamlessly. Cleave potencies on various other actions can be adjusted to fit the return of the cleaving GCD's, but otherwise it would be a painless addition that allows summoner players to feel like they're more active during their burst phase. (1/3)

OGCD's, OGCD's everywhere.
We need more of these, and I don't mean during specific primal phases, or even during bursts. This job has many, MANY instants and short casts, which means there's plenty of space to fit in buttons to be pressed between them. The current amount we have is just too small, and while I'm not 100% sure where the balance should be, I have one proposition: Make Energy Drain a 30 second cooldown. More Necrotizes sprinkled into summoner's rotation would allow more active play, and make more readily available another button with a GREAT animation: Ruin IV. Only pressing it once a minute when it looks as cool as it does is a crime against Ruinkind. Twice a minute? Now we're talking. It -would- lead to us, with the current way summoner works, not press Ruin 3, which loses us a cast time, but the specific button gets used plenty during Demi phases, so losing one press during downtime wouldn't be too big of a deal. Plus, if you're sad about missing out on a hardcast, we might get more of those if the primals get more interesting! Other than that though, any additional OGCD's we can get squeezed into our rotation would be fantastic for keeping ourselves active.

Utility: More Accessible. PLEASE.
Summoner's current utility kit is...odd. We have a swiftcast raise on a 40 second cooldown, which is nice and easy to utilize during progression parties, and casual groups alike. Nice! We also have addle, something...every caster does, so it feels silly to point out, but it's there. Where it gets weird is our other heals and shields. Radiant Aegis is a sizable shield we put on ourself, and has a nice and short cooldown. Great button, but it's sadly diminished in usefulness by one fact: You can't use it during primal animations, or at ALL during Demi's. This leaves us quite a conundrum when we might want to use it during those times. No other caster is gated by a system like this, and it's simply a weird leftover Egi/Carbuncle carryover. If you can make searing light castable by ourselves, you can make Radiant Aegis castable by ourselves. But, honestly, that limitation is tame compared to my REAL pet peeve: Demi healing buttons. Lux Solaris is kinda fine. You have 30 seconds to execute it every 2 minutes, which usually means it can hit something, but not always. Phoenix though...Phoenix's missed potential makes me sad. It's cast as SOON as you summon Phoenix, meaning that if you want to do your DPS normally, you can't hold the healing for later. And don't get me started on Rekindle...a targeted heal is niche enough from a DPS, but one that can only be used within a 15 second window every 4 minutes?! The amount of times that's going to be useful when healers have every heal under the sun, and tanks have stronger mitigations than ever, is so, so very low. My proposal is simple to "Somewhat" fix the demi heals: Make Phoenix's regen a cast, which is tied to the same button as Lux Solaris, and make them castable anytime before your next Demi cast, and make Rekindle instead be a buff to your Radiant Aegis to apply a regen after it falls off, whether that's through breaking or timing out. Having these heals that are tied to your Demi's more accessible means the utility Summoner has will be more readily appreciated and useful. 3/4(?)

Normal Bahamut: Should. Should he still be here?
This will no doubt be the most controversial request, but I'm going to ask for it anyway. Remove Normal Bahamut after you get Astral. It's such a strange concept to summon 3 different Demi's, yet have 1/2 of the demi casts be the exact same, while the other 1/2 are split between a worse version of the original 1/2, and Phoenix. I'm sure we -might- see an Umbral Phoenix to match Astral Bahamut next xpac (Phoinix, anyone?), and if you're going to go that direction, you're not gonna just keep normal Phoenix in there too, right? Going Astral Bahamut, Bahamut, Umbral Phoenix, Phoenix might sound cool, but honestly it's too many different flavors of the same concept (Demi turret following you around and getting enkindled) that it'll start feeling bloated. And the normal versions feel so lackluster compared to the newer, shinier kinds. I know there's a lot of nostalgia for Bahamut from both the community and dev team, as he's an iconic primal and everything, but his existence in the rotation makes it weird and confusing and honestly seem less polished. Please, PLEASE put him back to level 70-99 where he should be, and if you're gonna release a new form of Phoenix, keep them at 80-109 or what have you.


I thought I had more to this, but honestly, that's it. These are all my "Super fun ideal additions/changes" to summoner that I wanted to share with the forum. Other things like "The return of DoTs: Tri-Disaster's Triumphant Shining!" came to mind, but honestly I doubt that would come to pass, you devs seem to be drifting away from DoT's in the game at all, as they've not only been removed from us, but also Ninja, Paladin, and Monk as well. Honestly, if you've read this far, I appreciate you, and hope you understand what at least one humble Summoner main, who might just keep playing this job no matter what the heck happens to it, feels like would be amazing additions and changes to their favorite job would be. Also, I -know- I said 3 parts, but as it turns out, my thoughts are lengthier than I thought, and cropping them turned out to be a nightmare so, here we are. Good luck, and have fun out there.

So, as it turned out, when I went to go put all my things in, I missed this part! Whoops. Here's the last bit, maybe the most important bit.

2: Shiva, Leviathan, Ramuh. What do?
No doubt at some point, are we going to get these three. Everyone's asking for them, they want them added. And I agree, I think it would be great to get new "Sapphire Leviathan", "Teal Shiva", and "Violet Ramuh", or something along those lines. What I -don't- want is for them to be simply reskins of the previous three gem-based summons. That would be a horrible waste of potential! Instead, give them all unique casts and Astral Flow mechanics. As an example, I think Leviathan would go great with 3 2.0 second cast, 3.5 second recast shenaniganry, with an enkindled OGCD that you press once or twice during it. That would leave the timing of Leviathan's "Phase" to be 10.5 seconds, very close to the existing 10.0, 9.5, and 11.0 timings of Titan, Garuda, and Ifrit. Unique casts and astral flows are what make the Gem summons interesting, so please expand on them! In addition, this is a great way to give summoner back some cast times, something that helps them feel more like casters!

I'm not sure SMN will even keep Resurrection in the next expansion as Yoshi regularly mentions it is being looked at. With that action gone then the job may be buffed much more in terms of damage, but even then it's just (in my opinion) extremely boring to play compared to before it's rework. The job needs skill expression; and currently it just doesn't have that. I do however think it's time to retire the 3 ARR Egi/Demi-primals and bring in new things to replace them, likely the in-game trait upgrades being the easiest way to accomplish this.