An idea for Summoner's Enkindle

Using Enkindle while under Aetherflow, with consume a stack and grant added effects depending on the summon.

Ifrit - Drops nails that applies fire damage to all attacks (I cant really think of one for Ifrit)

Garuda - Drops plumes increasing spell and attack speed

Titan - Gives everyone a defense boost

Granted all these arnt terribly creative, but it would be nice if they had added effects other than just a damage spell.

I like the idea of support, also if SMN does go down this route of becoming more supportish, effects of DOTs could be introduce to increase their utility.
Maybe a casting combo mechanic which allows the use ruin of CD at half mp or free mp with procs.

Seeing as the SMN is comparable with MNK, maybe :

Bio has the stats it has now
-reduces targets defense to miasma by X amount
-15% chance next fester/ruin (this would need some tinkering to prvent OPness) costs no aetherflow stacks/MP

As somone who mained SMN all the way up till T12. I would LOVE for Summoner to go more support instead of more DPS.

I like your Enkindle idea, being some sort of super buff for the party for like 30seconds depending on the pet.

Along with this I wouldn't be against spells that didn't do damage but did debuff the boss or buff individual players instead, sort of like some enchanting and enfeebling class (Red mage please).

Maybe a 60second CD haste spell.
A 120second MP Regen spell.
Garuda/Ifrit/Titan having a party buff spell over their secondary single target attack spell. (The one that does the stun,pushback). I almost never use it.

A better proc over spell speed, I would even prefer a proc like "Your next Dot tic does double damage" over "Your spell speed is increased for 15 seconds".

Summoner going the support route would probably have me quit my Mnk in a heartbeat.

Why would Summoner need more support abilities? You're going to make BLM the only viable magical DPS? All melee DPS (NIN, DRG and MNK) have good and sustained DPS. Why would you tweak SMN DPS (which is already lower than BLM and a lot lower than melee over a long fight) and achieve nothing because a BRD already has the essensial support. Why would you as a DPS class make sure other people do more DPS and suffer yourself? What's the point? So you would lose DPS in order to increase other people's DPS. That's the same thing!

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Originally Posted by ViviAnimus

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I would like SMN to have more DPS, and it needs it but I also think having the enfeebling abilities allows it bring a bit more than BLM. At the end of the day casters don't do more damage melee, but if you can up your party's DPS that is always a good thing.

It would also be good if SMNs could extend their own DOTs via a mechanic excl pets.

Casters shouldn't do as much damage as melee, I agree, unless in AoE heavy fights, they should be close or even above. Summoner is nowhere near any of the melee and I really mean no where near in Final Coil. Everything is basically a punching bag. BLM is fine in all of Final Coil though. But it is dependent on foes and selene buffs. It doesn't always get that. The raw damage melee DPS output is just too good for Summoner. The Raise should be deleted since it is absolutely useless. If a Summoner needs to raise in Final Coil, you might as well wipe. Summoner is worthless in Final Coil in comparison to other classes. There is zero reason to bring one.

I agree casters should have the upper hand on AOE fights, and melee shouldnt even be able to hold a candle to AOE. I mean the LB system clear shows that.

I think the other annoying this is all the melees are fairly close on par with each other regardless of skill cap,

I'm sorry BLM is braindead, SMN should at least being doing more dps as a reward.

lol just to keep on topic, oooooo pets damage is multiplied pet active DOT on target ^^

BLM is hard to get the numbers. I am a main BLM. People don't understand how BLM works and what the difficulties are on BLM. They only look at rotations. I used to push more DPS on my Summoner than I did on my BLM before the buff easily. Summoner isn't really that hard either to be honest. But yes, I would like to see SMN get a damage buff.

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Originally Posted by ViviAnimus

Casters shouldn't do as much damage as melee, I agree, unless in AoE heavy fights, they should be close or even above.

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I actually disagree with the concept of melee having significantly higher numbers then casters. BRD damage being lowered in my mind has always been because of their utility. In other MMOs this does not really seem to be the case. Maybe some slight differences in numbers with melee having a very slight edge for single target and casters having a slight edge over AoE, but not wiping the floor one way or the other. The way the game is designed right now, most progression groups have a spot for 2 melees, 1 brd, and 1 caster. As more jobs get added this is going to really make group composition feel stale. I assume the next job to be announced (probably post expansion) will be a caster of sorts.

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Originally Posted by ViviAnimus

BLM is hard to get the numbers. I am a main BLM. People don't understand how BLM works and what the difficulties are on BLM. They only look at rotations. I used to push more DPS on my Summoner than I did on my BLM before the buff easily. Summoner isn't really that hard either to be honest. But yes, I would like to see SMN get a damage buff.

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None of the jobs are really "hard" to play once you've really spent time learning them. You just need to learn rotations. BLM and SMN both sound like really easy classes on paper, but to push maximum DPS there's a lot more to it. Fireweaving is big for BLM as well as knowing when you can move, and when you can stand still to cast. SMN is more about managing timers, knowing when you can stand in melee range, and clipping DoT's with as little extra time as possible. Melee jobs are about set rotations.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

Fireweaving

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Please no, pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeee no.

I agree that most classes have a low floor but high ceiling though, MNK and SMN being the exceptions as their Floors are relatively high but their ceilings are pretty low.

So if every class needs to be able to bring something to the table, lets do a quick comparison:
Bard: MP/TP regen + ranged silence
BLM: Massive AoE damage
Ninja: Goad + 10% party dmg buff (10 sec)
Monk: Dragon Kick + highest ST damage
DRG: 10% archer dps buff
SMN: Eye for an Eye, Virus + in combat res

So looking at this list, there are a couple things I want to highlight

1) There is no ranged dps with great single target dps ability. I agree ranged should not compete with melee in terms of raw dps numbers, but I would love to see summoner get a buff to single target damage so that they can at least bring that over the AoE focused black mage anyways.

2) Summoner utility is crap. EfaE and Virus are shared with scholar anyways so someone else has access to them. And the in combat res is the only major utility option that completely destroys dps output since the mana cost is so massive. Plus final coil now has a ton of mechanics that punish dying anyways so it is not even useable.

3) DRG need some serious love in the utility department. Wont go more into this because it is a SMN thread

So what I would like to see for summoner is this:

1) Rework their utility completely. Give them something that scholar cant already do better. Hrm maybe a second class with a consistent int debuff so monk is not the ONLY one.

2) Allow their in combat raise to be free mana cost. Obviously this cannot be given to scholars. This wont help with final coil, but it will help the ridiculous mana problems that are currently destroying the class.

3) Work on SMN mana issues. This could be accomplished in a number of cool ways. My personal pick would be to grant fester a 50% chance to make the next energy drain cost no aetherflow stack. This would go a long ways towards helping stabilize the class dps in long fight situations

4) SMN being a DoT based class should have strong ST dps. It should be the strongest ranged dps in ST situations. We already have the AoE king BLM and the strong support Bard, why not throw SMN a bone. It should still be 5% lower than monk dps output though, so that monk does not lose their main benefit.

One last thing that I did not mention is that SQEnix needs to make spell speed better for summoners. Currently, the shared BLM/SMN 120/130 gear is riddled with Spell Speed and it is far and away the worst stat for SMN since it does not affect DoT damage.

Easy fix, allow spell speed to increase the DoT damage frequency. Or if they really cannot change the 3 second tick time. Allow spell speed to give a corresponding increase to damage done by DoT abilities. Like a 5% spell speed stat would increase bio damage from 35 potency per tick to 36.75 potency per tick. That would help a ton for making the ridiculous issues with shared gear less noticeable.

Or they could just give BLM and SMN 2 different sets of gear, but this would require more dev time i think.

I actually agree that SMN should have higher ST damage. However, the only place in which your AoE rotation as a BLM is half decent is in T12 (end raiding). You can't even AoE too much to make sure stuff doesn't die too soon and you have to LB. Summoner Bane is probably very potent, so increasing dot damage would also increase Bane to certain hights and that is a problem.
If you were to up the SMN damage, you should increase the potency of Ruin I and the Pet damage. That's all that is needed.

Hmm, I would say yea and no at the same time. Instead of adding this to current why not adding it to new egis; Levi, Ramuh, Shiva? We don't need new pets but using them as a summon to produce this effect could work just as well. All three share the same cooldown of 60s. Diamond Dust = Defense, Judgement Bolt = Attack DPS, Tidal Wave = Spell DPS.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Hmm, I would say yea and no at the same time. Instead of adding this to current why not adding it to new egis; Levi, Ramuh, Shiva? We don't need new pets but using them as a summon to produce this effect could work just as well. All three share the same cooldown of 60s. Diamond Dust = Defense, Judgement Bolt = Attack DPS, Tidal Wave = Spell DPS.

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Doing this would change the entire way that summons in this game work, unless you're talking about only doing it for the new egis, in which you're talking about summons working two different ways in the same game. Not gonna happen.

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Originally Posted by ShaolinMike

Doing this would change the entire way that summons in this game work, unless you're talking about only doing it for the new egis, in which you're talking about summons working two different ways in the same game. Not gonna happen.

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Yes just the new egi and also would you prefer then to just replace the ifrit, garuda, and titan then? How else do you see them adding new egi's into the mix?

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Yes just the new egi and also would you prefer then to just replace the ifrit, garuda, and titan then? How else do you see them adding new egi's into the mix?

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I don't want the new to replace the old, I just want them to be reworked where they each have more defined roles. Each one should have enough purpose to where no single egi is used for ALL the content. I'm so sick of seeing yellow birds flying around whenever a SMN is in the group. I like the fact that Ifrit has become as useful as Garuda, if not moreso, in certain situations.

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Originally Posted by ShaolinMike

I don't want the new to replace the old, I just want them to be reworked where they each have more defined roles. Each one should have enough purpose to where no single egi is used for ALL the content. I'm so sick of seeing yellow birds flying around whenever a SMN is in the group. I like the fact that Ifrit has become as useful as Garuda, if not moreso, in certain situations.

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Well you and I definitely agree on that point, but there are only so many roles to take. I guess at this point I can only hope the the new egis fill the DPS roles of Single Target pet, AoE pet, and CC pet. :(

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Well you and I definitely agree on that point, but there are only so many roles to take. I guess at this point I can only hope the the new egis fill the DPS roles of Single Target pet, AoE pet, and CC pet. :(

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If that's all they are, I'll be quite disappointed. There needs to be some evolution in acquiring new pets, not just skin swaps like they did with the Carbuncles -> current egis

IMHO, Summoner should be the replacement for bard.

Giving people an option to not have to be DPS chasers but still dps heavy.

Summons should come with a Buff

Summoners should get a CD Mp Regen skill (Say 2 Min CD)
Pets should offer some sort of party buff while out or something.

Titan out? +5% HP or Higher Parry Chance or something
Ifrit out? +5% Crit or Damage or AA's or something
Garuda out? +5% Spellspeed or Skillspeed or increase on Proc rates
Ramuh out? etc..

Or maybe, Energy Drain has 20% To Regen MP equal to full damage and gives to whole party.

Idunno, I just don't think that every DPS job should be, so DPS heavy, support jobs are where the fun is at. I mean look at Sch, they are healers but they are expected to DPS too. Summoner should be the opposite side of the same coin IMHO.

One is more Buff X Heal (Adlo, Succor) and some Heals, the other should be More DPS and some Buffs

This was a pretty interesting read for me. I like the idea of having another strong support class, but 2 things would need to happen in order to make this not completely overshadow bard.

1) During the times when the party is being heavily buffed, your pets damage needs to drop off considerably, this would be to try and mirror the 20% dps drop that bard has to trade off.
2) The pet casting system needs to be reworked. The system you have suggested means that players would need to spend a long time bringing out out new pets so that they have the appropriate buff when they need it. The 7 second cast time and high mana cost to summon is not realistic when smn's have mana problems like they do now. I would say do something like this.

quick summon: makes your next summon cast instantly and reduces mana cost by 75%. (2 min CD)

Basically, a quick cast that also reduces mana cost, but for summon skills only. The CD is to punish bad smn's who let their pets die too often.

Stop giving SMNs these 2 min CD buffs ? Like part of the issue with SMN is you start off strong and then Drop DPS Drastically because you're waiting for that godly RS on top of Cont. Combo for high sustained dots....either give SMNs a 15% off 1 min CD or decrease RS CD time. Also make them more potent then the SCHs DoTs don't de-buff the SCHs dots just make a SMNs more potent ffs.

SMN Already has to wait for Ekindle off that ungodly CD quit adding longer ideas to it.
SMN should have INT buff on its own and that will somewhat fix the problem.

I hope dev reduce the CD for Enkindle skill to 120s instead of 300s. 300s is too long for skill that not give a higher damage or the CD still 300s but raise the skill potency to 500+ since its do higher damage. Then please cancel casting time to Bio 2 and Miasma 1 since that the only main dps skill that SMN has and it can distinguish the SMN from BLM in term of gameplay utilities since BLM is already have higher dps & good AOE skill. Besides, dev can remove the raise and psyhick skill since its mostly useless in raid/dungeon coz SMN have no time to use it because SMN usually tend to DPS rather than do healing/raise thing like SCH/WHM do. This 2 slot can be replace by damage buff/skill for SMN.

I also like the idea, that summoning pet will get permanent party buff like summon garuda will get 5% increase int & spell speed/skill speed etc. I also like the rework idea that, if summoning pet like garuda, SMN will get access to wind type spell and this elemental spell can replace with raise and physick spell. Last but not least, I really hope dev will rework the appearances of the egi's. At least create a true primal appearances in size of the player/minion and not the crystallize one. This will make SMN look like a true Final Fantasy summoner.