Summoner - Class feedback - complaint

So ive been playing for a while and i played FFXI for 8 years, ive started to come to a conclusion that FFXIV summoner, really, reallly blows...
i am very dissapointed, i must admit.
i was very much looking forward to being a summoner again, it was my most favourite job in FFXI, i was able to fend for myself, level myself on my own and more, i enjoyed being a good asset in a party and out of one also.

what is my problem with FFXIV version of summoner?
well this image sums up one of the issues, it really does.
http://i.imgur.com/R1I8nbR.png
yes SE, WTH HAPPENED!?
this was most disheartening thing
as much as the egis are kinda cute, i just, i cant, i feel like this is a step back.
will we be getting some kind of upgrade from this?
(please say yes!)
because, right now, i dont have that summoner feeling, the egi's are the equiv. of, well ... FFXI Spirits ... and every summoner knows how "amazing" they are (sarcasm!)

i miss summoning Garuda and getting my badass harpie girl swooping in to kick the crap out of my enemies and looking badass doing so!

but its not just asthetics, its the abilities themselves, in FFXI your summon had a wide array of buffs and DPS abilities, any experienced summoner knew how to take on being a DPS main role or a support main role, the rotations could be complex or simple and it was amazing to play.
in FFXIV i feel there is too much limitation in this, there is not much my pet can do, not when compared to thier FFXI relatives, its just, kinda sad.

when i first saw the concept for the primal Ifrit i was SO excited to when summoner was going to playable so i could summon that majestic beast by my side .... and all i got was some red thing that floats and is the size of a dog.....
im sorry but, what?
i even had to beat the full size dude TWICE before i could even get the summon, and this was the pay-off?

i feel like i was ripped off, like there was a part of the contract they put in the most tiniest writing that no one could read it when they signed up to being a summoner, and im pretty sure it said:
"by signing this contract to be a summoner you agree that your summons will look like toys and your abilities will suck. we prefer to have very little connection with FFXI summoner as possible, no badass Fenrir for you!"

i do wish that a member of staff will come along to tell me that, dont worry, we are going to fix summoner in the expansion and youl love it.... but i doubt it =/

i love the game, but my favourite job has been butchered and that makes me feel rather depressed about playing it.

it sounds silly, but im sure if the same happened to your favourite jobs, you would feel the same way.

this is just my opinion.

(i couldnt put this all in one post, sorry, it wouldnt let me)

Who'd have thought that I would have to break this out again so soon...

http://awesomegifs.com/wp-content/up...dead-horse.gif

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Originally Posted by Razard

Who'd have thought that I would have to break this out again so soon...

http://awesomegifs.com/wp-content/up...dead-horse.gif

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haha sorry i dont browse this section of the forums much, but you never know, maybe if we complain enough someone might finally get the picture and do something?
the hope is there...

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Originally Posted by Razard

Who'd have thought that I would have to break this out again so soon...

http://awesomegifs.com/wp-content/up...dead-horse.gif

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Yay, another thread crying about summoners.

ok clearly im late on something here, sorry i dont live on the forums, i miss stuff.
i just wanted to voice my opinions
but i see that there is no point in that, so ima just let this thread die

(starting to remember why i dont visit and post here much)

They've explained why this is not the case anymore. They've explained why they've chosen this direction.

-at this point-, it will not change. It's one of those things, sorry.

Like all the other jobs Ninja retains it's iconic feel while the Summoner got butchered. Ninja will end up crucifying the Summoner because in any mmorpg melee dps have higher DoT then Casters.

Those 2 pictures arent of the same thing.
One is of Titan. The other is of Titan-egi, which is just a small portion of Titan's power.

Deal with it.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Like all the other jobs Ninja retains it's iconic feel while the Summoner got butchered. Ninja will end up crucifying the Summoner because in any mmorpg melee dps have higher DoT then Casters.

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Any version of Summoners you ever proposed was way more butchered than what we have right now.

And for the picture linked by OP, that resolution is making my eyeballs bleed. I hope that's not the resolution your average summoner uses because that would explain quite a lot about people's complaints with their looks.

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Originally Posted by Talaya

ok clearly im late on something here, sorry i dont live on the forums, i miss stuff.
i just wanted to voice my opinions
but i see that there is no point in that, so ima just let this thread die

(starting to remember why i dont visit and post here much)

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Using the tools provided by the forum (Search bar right under your name at the top) isn't something necessarily hard to do.

The Egis look horrible at any resolution.

The only thing to look forward to is that they they said they'll take into consideration the complaints when designing Levi and ramuh egi. Like the op I am displeased with the models - for the titan egi they could have at least used the granite gaolers - they look bad ass. Here's hoping they do right with the future models.

@Dyne_Fellpool
but they are the same, they are the summoners summon, they are the same thing, just a different name.

@Dwill
I .... i really feel there was no need for this, its a rather passive aggressive comment...
i know there is a search function, i just wanted to post and be done with it.
(Been on the forums for 2 years... soooo, y'know)

@Akiza
Agreed, even on HD, they look meh

@Brianmj

Oh thats good at least, i do hope the future releases of egis look better.
i did play aion for a while in pay to play and they had a good system where the more you leveled up, the bigger and more badass the summons became, maybe they can input quests in the future where we can "upgrade" our summons maybe?
i wish we had more versitility with our summons also, i miss buffing everyone to the teeth and being a DD XD
and i realllly miss the 2 hour abilities.

I would happily spend ages questing if it meant my Summoner class could become as badass as its FFXI relative, i really would.

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Originally Posted by Talaya

I would happily spend ages questing if it meant my Summoner class could become as badass as its FFXI relative, i really would.

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Originally Posted by Razard

I found this on another forum, sums it up pretty well.

"FFXI's Avatar system was also crummy as hell when it came to representing the power you possessed.

What would you rather have, something that looks akin to the actual Summon but punches enemies for 2 damage, or something that has the looks to match it's usefulness?

I realize this is final FANTASY, but making the Summoner's summons full on Primal size seems a bit unrealistic. You harness a mere portion of the Primal's powers, and as such, it looks just how it should.

In FFXI your Avatars tickled the enemies when they weren't using their BP abilities. They were nearly full size, but the amount of actual control over their power wasn't nearly proportionate to the appearance they had."

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ransparent.gif

They're really just representative of their power.

To get the big bad primals you need to gather hundreds of thousands of crystals to summon and when you do they're really strong - too strong to be controlled.

What SMN basically does is take a couple of crystals (we'll say 3 to match the summoning animation), combine them with their arcane magic and mutate them into and with the essence of the primal. Since only 3 earth crystals are used to get titan-egi it's no wonder he looks like a potato compared to the primal. If you just want to speculate usnig primal fight ilvls as an idea you come out with egi's being only 3-5% of a primal's power.

That said, it's not outside the realm of possibilities for future quests to enhance our skill with arcane magic and summon slightly stronger egi's (at least in appearance). Will they ever look just like the primals? Nope because that's their form with a lot of crystals and they are not controllable then. But there's still the chance they can improve if only slightly. If other DPS get boosts in future level cap increases they could slack on the SMN's just a bit to bring the ratio from about 80%SMN 20%pet to 70%SMN 30% pet and give them slightly sturdier looking appearances.

I'd still rather just summoning them like singleplayer games though (not with the same huge power, just summon for damage akin to Tales of Xillia's summoning) but that would play too much like BLM :P

@ Exstal
That comment may have been true before some of the updates, at one time, the summons had some issues, but due to the responce from players, they DID fix it.
SMN in FFXI was a fantastic job, if you KNEW how to play it well, you could keep the damage going for hours, i learnt every single thing i could about that job because i LOVED it.
il admit in FFXI you REALLY needed to know your stuff, playing your job right is what made or broke jobs like SMN, BST, PUP, ect, (heck knowing how to play your job right would make or break the game) you needed to practice and understand the limits of the job and benefits of it.
SMN was by no means useless, damage potential was great if you knew how to rotate pets to get the most out of it, i wasnt just a DD, i was a support too.
i just feel SMN in FFXIV is lacking right now, the gameplay is what made SMN for me, and i want some of it back.

(FFXI fangirl, i did play for 8 years, so you get some of my sadness with FFXIV over this job atm)

@MartaDemireux
Yeah its not just the looks though, id like them to look cooler, not exact, but, better at least, not toys.
Future quests to upgrade would be awesome! and id love that very much
but i dont want just the looks to be upgraded, i want the abilities to hold more ground too, i want more abilities and control over my pet, more options.

Well I hate to disappoint then but Yoshi has made an official announcement that he doesn't want a pet job to be focused on the pet. His reasoning was that it would be too complicated for the playerbase's majority and it would be too risky to put so much power into the pet since if it died the SMN's DPS would take a huge hit and then they wouldn't get invited to raids. There was also something about balancing issues but I don't remember the spedfics.

So don't hold your breath on getting a pet focused pet job like FFXI's SMN.

Well you do get a part of their power as a SMN so I can understand why you don't get the full version of them, but at the same time it does get boring overtime just letting the pet be the DPS and not your own other than a backup healer....well depending on subjob in FFXI. I don't mind the change cause instead of having the pet do all the work, both help out each other in support one another, buffs, and DPS. I like that kind in balance where in FFXI you really don't cause in the end the pet is doing all of the work making the player very weak especially if the pet dies.

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

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Yeah that i do understand, but maybe make some ability to make the summoner FEEL like a summoner, some balancing out would be nice, more abilities for the pet would be brilliant, and maybe having some special abilities linked to a big cooldown, something that allows for massive burst damage for a short period of time.
i think this will make summoner feel more about the summon, thus making summoner, a summoner.
because i kinda feel like i can ditch my pet sometimes because it feels rather useless in some situations.

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Originally Posted by Osmond

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The reason for that in FFXI was to keep summoner from being too overpowered, it was all about the pet, the summoner IS a pet job, you summon the astral avatar by your side and command it in battle, thats the point of it, the summoner itself is commander of the beast, there wasnt much need for it to have too much power, and if you knew what you were doing, that fact didnt matter too much XD

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Originally Posted by Talaya

The reason for that in FFXI was to keep summoner from being too overpowered, it was all about the pet, the summoner IS a pet job, you summon the astral avatar by your side and command it in battle, thats the point of it, the summoner itself is commander of the beast, there wasnt much need for it to have too much power, and if you knew what you were doing, that fact didnt matter too much XD

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Well sry for not being a expert of the job, wasn't trying to. The whole point I made is that they want a balance between the pet and the player. You kept telling me that it's only a pet job which is why the dev team stray away from it. They don't want a pet only job....no they don't want to copy what FFXI is doing and try to do something different.

Yes, I don't want a chicken nugget, I want a complete titan, we have also a gummy bird and a chilli with arms, xD

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Originally Posted by Talaya

i think this will make summoner feel more about the summon, thus making summoner, a summoner.
because i kinda feel like i can ditch my pet sometimes because it feels rather useless in some situations.

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Enkindle
If you ditch your pet you are losing 1/4th of your dps. 1/3rd of your dps if you are a bad player.

This is not FFXI. It will never be FFXI-2. This game is not menu based, having some huge avatar along with 8 players can and will likely be distracting on the field or obscure mechanics. Lalafells already have issues in various turns with overhead tells and not noticing them due to being within the bodies of other players. Egis are not intrusive, easy to get what you need out of them and function fine. SMN is fine and if your major gripe is the aesthetics or "I want a nuke" play something else.

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Originally Posted by AldoVonAlexandros

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ahahaha, this made me laugh XD

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Originally Posted by Madoka

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I never do ditch my pet, im just saying, in some instances, it FEELS like i could and it wouldnt matter.
in burst situations, the player will deal more damage than the pet, this is a fact and its hard to keep up with jobs that can deal out burst damage in fast fights, for summoner, this is an issue, our fast casting moves are rather weak, and our biggest burst still requires time, if there is one thing ive noticed, its that summoner does not do well in fast paced battles where the monster needs to die quickly/dies too fast, this is a shame because i worry summoner wont be selected for certain things for this very reason.
balance is needed, the pet needs to be able to do more, 1/3 of the overall player power? thats a bit of a joke, it should be AT LEAST half, what is the point of having a summon if the job isnt really about the summon itself.
this is my arguement.

The mentality here on this forum is that it is not important wither summoner players are actually satisfied about the job or not, what is important to them is that the job is made in a way that doesn't ruin the overall game balance, while I believe SE do care a tiny bit about the over all feel of the class.

Hell since when summoner was a freaking DOT job?!? ... jeez some people just see this game as an MMO with no previous roots or history.

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Originally Posted by Iamapathy

The mentality here on this forum is that it is not important wither summoner players are actually satisfied about the job or not, what is important to them is that the job is made in a way that doesn't ruin the overall game balance, while I believe SE do care a tiny bit about the over all feel of the class.

Hell since when summoner was a freaking DOT job?!? ... jeez some people just see this game as an MMO with no previous roots or history.

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You're delusional to believe that people who argue against the people like OP are not Summoners themselves. The mentality is, "good job gameplay needs to take a backseat to lore / older games' lore".

The problem is you keep going back to FFXI as a reference but it's only hurting you, not helping. In FFXI you had 4 main position in a PT; tank, healer, dps, and support. In FFXIV you have 3; tank, healer, dps. SMN in FFXIV does one job but does it well, dps. In FFXI, at least when I played, the defining role of SMN was /37 whm. You had some cool move like aerial armor and stone skinaga but at the end of the day I didn't feel like a SMN, just a gimped healer.

To be a true FF summoner you have to make them a simple caster, not a pet job.

@Dyvid - Mathematically it's SMN(FF14)=/=SMN(Completely unrelated FF). Or Akiza's recent FF Tactics Arcanist=Time Mage. Or SMN=/=ANY OTHER MMO WITH SUMMON STYLE CLASSES. I've only really heard a few good ideas out of these complaints. One of which is that Tri-Disaster should have a variable effect based on whichever egi is out. That's a nifty idea. My two coppers.

Keys issues I see with SMN:
*Tri-Disaster - Long cooldown and no real use for CC at End Game.
-should be changed to DoT extension and removed contagion from Garuda / Carbuncle. Also lower the cooldown to 60sec.

*Egi are generic dps with lack of role. Could be redesigned to provide a better suite of roles; mainly Single Target, AoE, and emergency tank.
-Garude would make a great AoE pet for trash mobs.
-Ifrit would be a good Single Target.
-Titan is a good tank but needs a provoke ability so grab instant hate.

Nice changes that aren't needed but would be welcomed. Rouse/Spur changes the appearance of egi. Enkindle cooldown to 180sec.

To be true to the Summoner SE has to make them a Job that commands summons not a DoT Job

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Originally Posted by Akiza

To be true to the Summoner SE has to make them a Job that commands summons not a DoT Job

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SE gets to decide what a Summoner is, not you.
Everyone's already told you this but the only game where Summoner was a pet class is XI (in X and XIII you gain direct control of the summon, and in XII they are AI controlled with no way to control them), through out the rest of the games, Summoner was a glamorized Black Mage with cut-scene-fu magic. And sadly, even though they looked cool, XI's Summoner had major problems, mainly being outclassed by everything, Black Mages beat them at nuking, White Mage and Scholars beat them at Healing, and Bards and Red Mages beat them at Support.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

To be true to the Summoner SE has to make them a Job that commands summons not a DoT Job

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To be true to the Summoner, SE has to make them a job that cast summon spells not a pet class.... If we are talking facts here.

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Originally Posted by Talaya

@Dwill
I .... i really feel there was no need for this, its a rather passive aggressive comment...
i know there is a search function, i just wanted to post and be done with it.
(Been on the forums for 2 years... soooo, y'know)

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If you couldn't be bothered to search, why should I be bothered to dignify your post with any other kind of response ?

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

SE gets to decide what a Summoner is, not you.
Everyone's already told you this but the only game where Summoner was a pet class is XI (in X and XIII you gain direct control of the summon, and in XII they are AI controlled with no way to control them), through out the rest of the games, Summoner was a glamorized Black Mage with cut-scene-fu magic. And sadly, even though they looked cool, XI's Summoner had major problems, mainly being outclassed by everything, Black Mages beat them at nuking, White Mage and Scholars beat them at Healing, and Bards and Red Mages beat them at Support.

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Like the old saying: "Jack of all trades, master of none".

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Originally Posted by Iamapathy

The mentality here on this forum is that it is not important wither summoner players are actually satisfied about the job or not, what is important to them is that the job is made in a way that doesn't ruin the overall game balance, while I believe SE do care a tiny bit about the over all feel of the class.

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I am really enjoying the summoner class and I care about the overall game balance. Actually, a lot of us do as they aren't mutually exclusive.

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Originally Posted by Iamapathy

Hell since when summoner was a freaking DOT job?!? ... jeez some people just see this game as an MMO with no previous roots or history.

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You want a history lesson ? There's your answer.

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Originally Posted by Iamapathy

The mentality here on this forum is that it is not important wither summoner players are actually satisfied about the job or not, what is important to them is that the job is made in a way that doesn't ruin the overall game balance, while I believe SE do care a tiny bit about the over all feel of the class.

Hell since when summoner was a freaking DOT job?!? ... jeez some people just see this game as an MMO with no previous roots or history.

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The mentality is not to cry wolf. Most Summoners are not making wild accusations and demanding unrealistic, balance breaking changes. They merely want a few quality of life changes. MMO's adhere to balance, believe it or not, to keep the game from going stale. If one job utterly dominates, players get bored and move on. SMN will never be directly comparable to other single player incarnations, as summons tend to be some of the strongest attacks in the game, aside from multi-attacks and haste.

Summoner is an awesome class, especially when teamed up with Monk and Dragoon, but with other DPS classes with AoE abilities and White Mages' Holy, Summoners don't stand a chance. I view our role similar to a K9 Police officer. We are partners. We work together, and I like that.

After reading everything in this thread, one thing no one has really mentioned how Summoners get pushed out of the DPS race with other the other big AoE classes Black Mage and Archer, and sometimes even White Mages. Aesthetically, I agree egi's could look much better but I understand the lore. Additional quests to prove the power increase of the egi would be my solution because with an increase in power would merit an enhancement to the look and would stay true to the lore. Change our Limit Break to where our pet is sacrificed to summoner the real deal. It would be nice if our limit break was more individualized to the Summoner Class.

My concern is the balance mentioned a few times in here. (continued)

Tonight, and many nights recently, I noticed that I could have all my dots down and a Black Mage at the same Item Level as me (i101) come in with a single Flare and take the entire mob, which had all 5 of my DoT's (Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II and Bio with Shadowflare down and using Bane) to 1/2 HP. BOOM. So now, all my DoT's are at half time, thus effectually halving or more than halving my DPS. Then follow that up with a Fire II and poof, no mob and useless DoT's since they maybe got 7-10 tics of damage in. And that is a big maybe. If the mob was over 4 enemies, I didn't have enough time to even get 3 DoT's on the additional enemy(s) with a Bane (if needed to spread those DoTs out) thanks to Flare and Fire II. To top that off, they get to use Raging Strikes for a 20% increase to damage for 20 sec on top of increased fire damage from Astral Fire III and the Magick and Mend II basic attack bonus of 30%?

Finally, this can become somewhat limitless for them with Convert and Astral Ice III restoring the MP quickly to the point where it can be done every 2 mobs or even every other mob if done right. Well, superb job to the Black Mages for managing all of this damage bonuses and their timing to meet out major burst damage, but needless to say as a Summoner, you start to feel useless. Doesn't seemed balanced to me.

Archers have done the same thing with Rain of Death having such a short cooldown. Bards can shoot of Rain of Death so fast that their damage outpaces our DoT's as well with instant cast and a 2.5 sec recast. The only downside is the 200 TP cost. Oh wait there is a 15% chance that Rain of Death is free with the use of Wide Volley (another Instant AoE with instant cast, 2.5 sec recast and 160 TP cost). Once again, this is especially effective when they couple it with Raging Strikes with 60 seconds earlier earlier cast due Trait bonus.

And finally, the White Mage who, if with a good tank, can cast Holy in Cleric Stance. Needless to say 2-3 Holy's and DoT's are useless again. With a 3 sec cast (only 1 tic of DoT's gained for the Summoner) and a 3.5 sec recast, major damage again. Its only downside being the MP cost, which is not important if they are getting their free Cure III's and the tank isn't needing much healing. And don't say you haven't been in dungeons were minimal healing was needed on trash mobs giving the healer amply time to switch to Cleric Stance and get a couple Holy's in there. We have all seen it.