So, the summoner...

I have seen many threads here about changing the summoner, and I would like to give my own thoughts about this matter, as I am a pretty fresh summoner.

The job itself is fun to play, but what I have the most problem with is the fact that it's a dot class much more than a summoning class, and I don't like that. It's named summoner, so it should be about summons. I don't expect SE to change the job, it would be so weird to completely overhaul one job when the game has been out quite a while already, but some major adjustments should take place:

Summon III
this is completely useless, I made a thread a while ago about this and learned that ifrit has no place in any content, and I hate when we get some abilities that are just never worth using, it's the most frustrating thing that an rpg game can do. Wasted code.


it would be easy to make ifrit usable, here are some changes that came into my mind:

Change the radiant shield to emit a damaging wave around ifrit, kinda like a dot, it would emit the damage at the same time that dots tick, potency should be something like 25-30 and range would be 6y

on top of that, fix the burning strike and increase it's potency to 140, those changes alone to ifrit would make him usable against normal mobs in dungeons, while garuda would usually be used during boss fights. This way all the 3 summons would actually be usable in different situations.

tri-disaster
I think everyone knows why this spell needs a change, it's just pretty much useless, it has cool animation and it's a job skill but it's just another spell that pretty much has no use. I don't think it's good to have very situational spells like this, sure it's good to have spells that are only usable in certain scenarios but I can't really think any use to this spell, bind is pretty crappy at the moment.

enkindle
200-300 potency attack at 5 min cd, am I the only one who just can't understand this? Either make the cd shorter (which I am not a fan of) or make the spell stronger.

my idea: change the spell to summon the real primal to the battlefield and make him unleash the ultimate attack, potency should be something like 1200-1800, and to actually make this not op and somewhat situational, make it to banish your pet after the ultimate ability and lock the summon ability for 20 secs or so, this would make it an awesome spell that let's you feel that you are actually a summoner, and it would actually be somewhat situational, like in titan you would save this to the end of the heart phase, when in fights that have no dps checks it would just be nice bonus damage. While the potency sound scary, think about this:

Let's say garuda's enkindle would have 1500 potency, the 20 secs summon lock out plus the time it takes to summon her again without swiftcast and actually have her attacking the enemy would be almost 30 secs, during this time she would have theoretically unleashed 10 wind blades, and those all do 1000 potency added up, plus the contagion that you can't use at that time. If you use swiftcast to summon her again the plus damage would be more.

These are the major things that annoy me, let me know what do you think about my ideas and present your own :3

I agree wholeheartedly as a main smn. DoT class was not what i signed up for, however smn is still fun to play. Ifrit of course needs a makeover for smn versatility as we never need to smn him for anything.
I especially like the idea of more enkindle power and summoning the full primal for a powerful attack and banish the pet, seems like a fair and satisfying change.

DOT ticks will not break bind. Makes Tri-Disaster VERY useful in certain situations if used correctly and the party cooperates. If Tri-Disaster isn't needed then it's not a very difficult fight then is it?

But yeah something needs to be done about Ifrit-Egi. Basically he is worthless except in PVP and even then "LOL" for a pet only good in PVP. No other job has a PVE based "Job Action" only suitable for PVP. But considering it's a core mechanic to the lore of SMN this is pathetic on SE's part for balancing it. Either Ifrit-Egi's Radiant Shield Action needed to be swapped out with something that is a core mechanic to SMN like how Contagion is or Ifrit needs +25% DMG and +25% HP buffs. Already Titan-Egi does 75% of the DMG that Ifrit-Egi does and he has way more survivability and Ifrit-Egi only has 500 more HP than Garuda-Egi has. Ifrit-Egi should do the MOST damage of all 3 pets just because it's a melee pet that can't dodge. A very similar reason why all melee jobs were buffed and why ranged jobs received debuffs in patch 2.1.

Titan-Egi is fine the way it is. Garuda-Egi should be a ranged AOE caster (more AOE than it has now) and Ifrit should be a burst-able single target melee. All future pets should bring something unique to the table and not another option for DPS where we just replace the old pet and take away more actions from our action pool for the illusion of "MOAR DPS PLZ".

For example all Egis should have an auto attack/DPS action for it's 3s CD, but the other actions should be based on other roles. Leviathan-Egi could be a healing pet (this won't take away from SCH, it will just make SMN viable for support healing as you would never bring a SCH for the healing role in EG just to DPS while the pet healed by itself). Ramuh-Egi could be a buffing pet (perhaps Enthunder: adds an extra 50 potency to all auto attacks of nearby party members; Shock Spikes: buff all nearby party members with an attack that reflects damage for 50-100 potency and Stuns the attacker for 5s, etc). Shiva-Egi could be an enfeebling or crowd control pet (actions that Slow, Bind, Paralyze, Sleep, etc.). Or anyone of these could be replaced with a support pet that works similar to BRD (restores MP/TP in some fashion, increases/resets the duration of buffs on party members, applies all buffs on 1 party member to all nearby party members, etc.)

Would be nice to some thing cooler done with Enkindle. Making it stronger isn't really necessary if you compare to how much dmg SMN is already doing total, but having the Egi transform into a stronger version for 30 secs and then having access to a special attack or special buffs similar to FFXI style during that time would be great. I'm not a fan of the Egi disappearing for 30 seconds because that would make Titan-Egi kinda fail for its support tank role.

I get that you're trying to make egi's more like past summons for the FF series, powerful spells with long, fancy cutscenes, but your Enkindle feels like an extra LB. It's literally on par with with both the melee and caster DPS's level 1 LBs (your enkindle: 1,500, LB: 1,400). What's to stop people from making up a full-party rotation with a party with 4-8 SMNs in it? Not to mention Enkindle only has a 300 sec cooldown, how long does it take to fill the first LB bar?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mimilu

I get that you're trying to make egi's more like past summons for the FF series, powerful spells with long, fancy cutscenes, but your Enkindle feels like an extra LB. It's literally on par with with both the melee and caster DPS's level 1 LBs (your enkindle: 1,500, LB: 1,400). What's to stop people from making up a full-party rotation with a party with 4-8 SMNs in it? Not to mention Enkindle only has a 300 sec cooldown, how long does it take to fill the first LB bar?

---

lol what? only 300 sec cooldown? In most WP/AK runs thats 3 times max (unless your going slow then 4) not to mention I have no idea where you got that potetncy number from because enkindle only has 250 potency.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mimilu

I get that you're trying to make egi's more like past summons for the FF series, powerful spells with long, fancy cutscenes, but your Enkindle feels like an extra LB. It's literally on par with with both the melee and caster DPS's level 1 LBs (your enkindle: 1,500, LB: 1,400). What's to stop people from making up a full-party rotation with a party with 4-8 SMNs in it? Not to mention Enkindle only has a 300 sec cooldown, how long does it take to fill the first LB bar?

---

--Pet:
Garuda: Aerial Blast - Deals wind damage with a potency of 250 to target and all enemies nearby it.
Titan: Earthen Fury - Deals earth damage with a potency of 200 to all nearby targets. Additional Effect: Razed Earth Duration: 15s
Ifrit: Inferno - Deals fire damage with a potency of 200 to all enemies in a cone before it. Additional Effect: Fire damage over time. Potency: 20 Duration: 15s
-Total Inferno Potency: 200 + 100 = 300

--SMN:
Bio: Potency: 40 Duration: 18s
-Total Bio Potency: 240
Bio II: Potency: 35 Duration: 30s
-Total Bio II Potency: 350
Miasma: Potency: 20 Additional Effect: Unaspected damage over time. Potency: 35 Duration: 24s
-Total Miasma Potency: 280
Shadow Flare: Potency: 25 Duration: 30s
-Total Shadow Flare Potency: 250 to any enemies who enter
Fester: 300 Potency

--BLM:
Fire: 150 Potency
Fire + Astral Fire III: 300 Potency
Fire III: 220 Potency
Fire III + Astral Fire III: 440 Potency
Thunder III: 60 Potency Additional Effect: Lightning damage over time. Potency: 35 Duration: 24s
-Total Thunder III Potency: 60 + 280 = 340

--LB
Caster LB1: 1400 Potency
Caster LB2: 3000 Potency
Caster LB3: 5400 Potency

Melee LB1: 2300 Potency
Melee LB2: 5000 Potency
Melee LB3: 9000 Potency

Reference: http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Limit_Break

While Enkindle does add to the already VERY high SMN DPS and boosting it is unnecessary for SMN as a DPS role, the 300s CD for what is SMN's most iconic action is VERY boring when compared to other actions in this game including itself with EVERY boring DOT surpassing it (not including Contagion to extend the DOTs and then Bane to spread those extended DOTs to nearby enemies) due to stats weighing in on Caster Potency more than Pet Potency.

If you notice Garuda's 100 Potency Wind Blade action hits for around the same damage as the SMN's 80 Potency Ruin/Ruin II actions. And considering that Wind Blade is on a 3s unbuffed GCD and Ruin/Ruin II are on a 2.5s unbuffed GCD then SMN spamming just Ruin/Ruin II (w/o auto attack) is stronger than Garuda (SMN's highest DPS pet on Obey which is stronger than Garuda on Sic) who doesn't even have an auto attack.

I don't mind the gameplay, but I don't really understand why I'm summoning elemental beings...and I use diseases. It doesn't feel right. I just feel like I'm abusing Garuda for Contagion, otherwise she doesn't offer much at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SenKoyo

I don't mind the gameplay, but I don't really understand why I'm summoning elemental beings...and I use diseases. It doesn't feel right. I just feel like I'm abusing Garuda for Contagion, otherwise she doesn't offer much at all.

---

Agreed, there is a disconnect between the spellcasting and the pets. It made more sense back in 1.0 when the original Thaumaturge had all the DoTs (Dia, Bio, Poison, etc) and debuffs. Conjurer had the elemental spells. They should have just left them as-is. Bringing in Arcanist/Summoner as a DoT class was such an odd choice. Since THM had been altered to act as the base class for Black Mage, I feel like they tried to kill 2 birds with one stone by making a pet class AND re-introducing DoT's all in one package. Arcanist/Summoner/Scholar didn't get the treatment it deserved.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SenKoyo

I don't mind the gameplay, but I don't really understand why I'm summoning elemental beings...and I use diseases. It doesn't feel right. I just feel like I'm abusing Garuda for Contagion, otherwise she doesn't offer much at all.

---

Yeah I agree. Maybe smn should have been Necromancer instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SenKoyo

I don't mind the gameplay, but I don't really understand why I'm summoning elemental beings...and I use diseases. It doesn't feel right. I just feel like I'm abusing Garuda for Contagion, otherwise she doesn't offer much at all.

---

The gameplay was nice for DoT class, but as the base design for summoner ... it was bad

for side note this is what i called deceptive advertising, take a look at this i don't think that we're given the power to summon primals or some awesome egis. Its funny that particular page actually made me choose summoner ... well played

Necromancer is a good word for it lol. It really does feel like SE sat down with left over ideas and said lets make a salad

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jlewiss

lol what? only 300 sec cooldown? In most WP/AK runs thats 3 times max (unless your going slow then 4) not to mention I have no idea where you got that potetncy number from because enkindle only has 250 potency.

---

One of the OP's solutions to make Summoner better was to change Enkindle from 250 to 1500 but locks summon out for 20 secs.
...Did you not read their post? >A>()

Ifrit-egi should change to Debuffer, no point for Summoner to have 2 DPS because Garuda will be always most powerful pet Summoner can have (unless Leviathan in future patch prove more useful than Garuda)

Make it able to cast debuffs reduced target P.def and M.def OR P.atk and M.atk in cost of itself low and slow atk so its something usefulness on hard content like Coils of Bahamut

BTW, for Leviathan-egi in future (after Level cap raised and expansion)

I have idea how its work (my guess 100%), Leviathan based on Water element, Its probably something like + max Hp + max Mp and def up stuffs :p

It'll be interesting to see how se make future egi's relevant and useful. We only have half at the moment and one of those is already useless, and one is solo only (titan).

I am glad to see you share my point of view to an extent, I hope SE realises that community is disappointed in summoner and wants to see a change.

Slighty off topic:
In all honesty they kind of shot themselves in the foot when they decided to make class/job system. The purpose of having a class is, pointless. You can set extra gimp skills and have gimper stats! Awesome. Some will say you can solo better using a class and X skills, solo what? A boss FATE? Pretty much pointless when you have a healing chocobo. We only ever use certain skills from our sub classes anyways, the others are usually worthless. SE could have easily given the same buff but specific name/animation to FIT the job. (I.E why am I doing a weird pose using internal release on DRG)


On Topic:
The problem with summoner comes from the class system. Arcanist was a poor choice for summoner to derive from, but at the same time since elements are split (conjurer got wind/water/earth) they couldn't necessarily clump it with thaum or conj. Thus in order to appease the fan base they clumped it with arcanist as a dot class. However, they should have made Arcanist remain a dot class (w/o) the pets and had it become red mage (healer) sage(dps). SE made their bed though and must sleep in it now. Any major overhauls to change the system now would essentially make this game "3.0" Re-reborn >.>;

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Samsta

I am glad to see you share my point of view to an extent, I hope SE realises that community is disappointed in summoner and wants to see a change.

---

Personally I'm really hoping they don't go ruin the class based on some of these silly complaints being thrown around.

Quote:

---

Arcanist remain a dot class (w/o) the pets and had it become red mage (healer)

---

I don't get how you can complain about SE designing a class "wrong" and then turn around and immediately suggest this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OmegaNovaios

DOT ticks will not break bind. Makes Tri-Disaster VERY useful in certain situations if used correctly and the party cooperates. If Tri-Disaster isn't needed then it's not a very difficult fight then is it?

---

Summoner (and White Mage, more appropriately) now have access to Blizzard II. It's silly to have two moves that serve mostly the same purpose, especially considering one is a (epically named) job skill.

If I had the ability to change Summoner to however I want, I'd separate Titan and Garuda from the Carbuncles, and have the Egi 'override' the summoner, kind of like in FFX how you replaced your party with a single powerful being. Give each summon a skill set of its own, like a full 1 to = set of skills. Summoner's listed as a DPS class, so try for differences in DPS styles rather than different roles entirely. I'd rather they overlap and it be personal preference in most cases than have people angry that I'm not using the summon that does everything.

Although it is possible they could change the summoner, anyone who played vindictus when it first started vs now they will be able to tell you one character evie was completely revamped and changed from how it was to how it is now.

Okay, Evie was a special case and I'm glad they did because scythe evie is still the baddest bitch around.
I posted my vote for a change on the Leviathan thread so I'll just repost it here.
Consider the following:
Ifrit buffs party wide physical damage, Titan buffs party wide physical defense, Garuda buff party wide magical damage, Ramuh buff party wide magical defense, Leviathan buffs party wide heals, Shiva debuffs enemies. (These would be abilities, not innate traits)
These changes alone would make for Summoners to use more than one summon. If the summon's abilities aren't interconnected and on the same timers, on top of DoT's you'd be switching between summons in order to best benefit your party. Now of course this is just an idea, and would require a great deal of balancing so as to not to guarantee Summoners a spot in every party. But, with proper timing, this base idea would make the summoner have to switch between summons in order to best benefit their team. Shiva out before major moves to debuff the enemy, Titan/Ramuh out to help mitigate partywide AoE's. Leviathan out right after to help with heals. Based of your party, you'd have be making choices between Ifrit and Garuda for max damage. There's a lot of possibilities even within this simple idea.

I like the OP's idea for Enkindle. An alternative to a 20-second lockout would be to give enkindle a 10 second cast time which cannot be affected by Swiftcast. Or, create a requirement before using enkindle (99 stacking buffs from pet attacks or something).

I always thought summoner would be very interesting if, instead of a pet class, you would simply take complete control over the pet as if it were your character for a limited time with its own abilities (YOUR complete set of job abilities), and during that time your character would become controllable as if it were the pet. But, like others have said, it's probably too late to change now.

I agree with the sentiment that summoners need to be worked on a little...but I don't think I'm in agreement with HOW.

First off, let me just say that I like the summoner job as it is.
Throughout the history of FF games, the summoner has always been an "in addition to" job. There might have been more, but the only characters I can recall at the time of this post that were dedicated Summoners were Rydia, Garnet, Eiko, and Yuna. Rydia was a black mage with the ability to summon, the other 3 were white mages with the ability to summon. This is the first game I've seen that a summoner job was a job in and of itself, with no influence from the other schools of magic, or wasn't taken over completely by the companion's action sets.

That being said, I would like to see some adjustments to how the summoner interacts with the summoned creature, and I have ideas that might help make Ifrit a viable companion again.

Almost every summoned creature has had an elemental affinity that influences its skill set, and also what it can and cannot be used effectively against. To bring that into the mechanics present in FFXIV, I would suggest adding an "Additional Effect: Elemental Damage" to the summoner's key DoTs based on which companion is out, in addition to implementing elemental strength/weakness components to monsters we battle against.

Also, I think it would be a good idea to adjust the pets themselves so that their potency is entirely dependent on how many DoTs the summoner has applied to the companion's immediate target, ranging from 0 to ??? potency, much like how Fester works.

Mobs and bosses will likely never have Elemental strengths/weaknesses because of the limited access to elements in general. If a mob is weak against Water...well guess what, only CNJ/WHM can do that. If you have an enemy resistant to Fire, you automatically lock out THM/BLM as being viable. There would have to be wider use of elements than just adding strengths and weaknesses.

And P.S. I hate that there is no Edit button on mobile and that quoting someone counts as part of your character limit. Ugh.

I find it very hard to take these threads seriously, almost of them is just ridiculous buffs to their class because of their "me, me, me" mentality.

Also, Ifrit-egi is more DPS than Garuda-egi in certain fights if you can position and manage him correctly. "Contagion" is not as great as people make it out to be, you get like 2.5 cast of ruin and that's pretty much it. Its great to use with bane in AoE situations but other than that, its just a minor convenience and minor DPS increase. Garuda's true advantage is that she is ranged and therefore much easier to handle.

Someone suggested using Contagion and than Swiftcasting to switch to Ifrit, then swifting Garuda back in once Contagion is up again but that is such a pain.

I personally feel the dots need their potency lowered a tiny bit but also do some frontloaded damage. Most of the time, the mob is only half dead before i manage to cast my 3 dots, makes me feel really weak in comparason. I've had people ask me why my dps as my 37 smn is so low, then I have to explain to them its dot based with very little direct damage other than ruin or fester. I feel they need to remove the aerther flow cost from fester, and maybe up its cooldown to 15s. I mean when I hear Tri-disaster I kinda expect some sort of impressive nuke, not some 20 potency piece o'crap. Then again this game has alot of worthless skills in it that seem to be there for no reason other than devs got lazy. Bards have 3 aoe's with all about the same potency is a prime example. I don't care if it can sometimes make another aoe free. its a 15% chance which is really low. I barely ever see it proc. We don't need 3 skills that do the exact same thing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Samsta

tri-disaster
I think everyone knows why this spell needs a change, it's just pretty much useless, it has cool animation and it's a job skill but it's just another spell that pretty much has no use. I don't think it's good to have very situational spells like this, sure it's good to have spells that are only usable in certain scenarios but I can't really think any use to this spell, bind is pretty crappy at the moment.

---

I don't PvP (because frankly I LOATHE PvP) but if the ability to mark targets is possible and debuff durations are the same all you need to do is to DoT up a melee then macro the bind1 marker to Tri-Disaster with a sound call and party message to not attack the marked target. Voila. A bound (for 20 seconds if durations are the same) melee still taking full damage from DoTs that don't break the bind effect. Forces healer to either heal them through it while you try to kill them or they try to spam esuna/leeches to remove all DoTs and break the bind.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Altimis

Ifrit-egi should change to Debuffer, no point for Summoner to have 2 DPS because Garuda will be always most powerful pet Summoner can have (unless Leviathan in future patch prove more useful than Garuda)

Make it able to cast debuffs reduced target P.def and M.def OR P.atk and M.atk in cost of itself low and slow atk so its something usefulness on hard content like Coils of Bahamut

---

Don't quite think that would work. All "debuffs" in this game like slow, stun, and blind and the like have diminishing returns and eventually hit a point of full resist if overused in a fight (get stun-happy people on Ifrit fights and watch the fun happen when Eruption can't be stunned.) I don't think "debuff class" is even viable in this game. I think Ifrit needs some retools and maybe a faster attack speed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CHunterX

Summoner (and White Mage, more appropriately) now have access to Blizzard II. It's silly to have two moves that serve mostly the same purpose, especially considering one is a (epically named) job skill.

---

Blizzard II - 0y range, 5y radius, 8s Bind
Tri-Disaster - 25y range, 20s Bind
They're not really that interchangeable.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PenutButter

I find it very hard to take these threads seriously, almost of them is just ridiculous buffs to their class because of their "me, me, me" mentality.

---

I already explained how the buff wouldn't be ridiculous, and "my" class? I dunno about that, I don't even main summoner.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PenutButter

Also, Ifrit-egi is more DPS than Garuda-egi in certain fights if you can position and manage him correctly. "Contagion" is not as great as people make it out to be, you get like 2.5 cast of ruin and that's pretty much it.

---

Ifrit-egi is never more dps than garuda, burning strike is buggy and even if it wouldn't be contagion plus the fact that mobs have higher physical than magical resistance would still make garuda a better dps, even the time that it takes for ifrit to get to melee range is lost dps as garuda can just start casting right away, there is a thread on this issue.

EDIT: I realised that my reasoning on contagion is a bit flawed, but nevertheless it is a great dps boost, especially when it adds up on longer fights, as you have to reapply your dots less often.

Do you really not see the issue with access to a mini limit break every 5 minutes...? Burst damage of 1800 is effing ridiculous you can 1 shot conflag in Twintania almost with that.....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmyNeudaiz

Do you really not see the issue with access to a mini limit break every 5 minutes...? Burst damage of 1800 is effing ridiculous you can 1 shot conflag in Twintania almost with that.....

---

Sure, my idea is debatable, what I would focus on is the overall damage boost it gives, which wouldn't be op at all on 5 min cd, if caster uses his lb1 on bosses is it a game breaking damage? No it is not, sure it is a nice damage and you can see bosses health bar dropping a little, but it is nothing amazing, damage like that can already be unleashed pretty fast by saving all your buffs on a certain occasion.

Example: let's say you want to do titan HM with 4 summoners because of the newly designed enkindle, they all save it for heart phase, the total damage from all the enkindles would be 6000 potency, which is a little more than melee lb2 (5000). Now think about how much the heart's health bar moves when melee uses lb2 on it. You still have plenty of damage to deal after that, and now all the summoners deal very little dps for the next 30 secs as they don't have their pets out, it would essentally be the same as saving your normal buffs/aetheflows on that occassion, nothing game breaking but very cool and still extremely helpful dps boost. It would make summoners feel like they are actually summoners. of course they could all save it for the end of the heart phase, and it would basically act as an extra melee lb2, which is extremely helpful, but that would make phase 5 long and summoning the pet would be pretty irritating.

yeah, i want this summon too

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i9...ndersummon.gif

potency of 1,000,000 and cd of 24 hrs pls