Just for fun - an idea I had

I'm not asking for any of this to happen. This is not another "fix SMN" thread. Don't hate.
This is just for fun, its just some ideas I had and I'm curious what people think. I dont think this exact idea has been brought up before, but maybe it has somewhere in the 86 "fix SMN" threads. Anyway like I said I'm just curious what ppl think (and I'm bored during maintenance haha)

So, the major complaints I frequently see about SMN are:
- MP management in long fights can cause SMNs to fall behind in dps (class balance)
- SMNs benefit far less from Spell Speed than BLMs which can cause further class imbalance
- the Egi's are unimpressive looking (and dont feel Summoner-ish)
- Tri-Disaster is largely useless (except in certain fringe circumstances)
- BLM has better AoE, burst, and arguably even single target dps


Essentially my idea is to change the 5 Summoner abilities from this:

Lv30: Summon III
Lv35: Fester
Lv40: Tri-disaster
Lv45: Spur
Lv50: Enkindle

to this:

Lv30: Summon Ifrit- Frontal line attack (like Doom Spike). 4sec cast time. 60sec cooldown. Cannot cast another summon for 5sec after use.
Lv35: Fester
Lv40: Summon Titan- Frontal cone attack (same range as Quick Nock). 4sec cast time. 60sec cooldown. Cannot cast another summon for 5sec after use.
Lv45: Spur
Lv50: Summon Garuda- targeted AoE attack (same range/radius as Flare). 4sec cast time. 60sec cooldown. Cannot cast another summon for 5sec after use.


The 3 summon spells would NOT summon the "full" Primal. They WOULD, however, summon a 30-50% size transparent version for the short duration of the spell effect.

The devs dont want huge pets blocking everyone's view of the battlefield. This is why the summoned essences would be less than full size, slightly transparent, and short-duration. This spell effect would be no more distracting than the animation for Holy or Flare.


Why?
This change is intended to do several things:

-SMNs would use a pet that most people don't seem to hate
Egi's would be gone, but Emerald Carbuncle and Topaz Carbuncle would be used for dps-pet and tank-pet instead. A lot of people (not all) seem to hate the look of the Egi's anyway.
Most people seem to like the cute look of Carbuncles instead of Egi's, and the devs would still be happy SMNs have a small pet.

-SMNs get to feel like they are summoning something more powerful than an Egi
As I said, these spell animations would be significantly larger than an Egi. Maybe somewhere in the range of 30-50% of the full Primal's size, depending on the Primal. The tradeoff is they would only be visible for a few seconds at a time.

-Spice up the most boring part of the SMN rotation: Ruin spam
You'd be casting a summon spell in place of Ruin whenever a summon spell was off CD. Unless you needed to move, then you'd Ruin II first. Ruin and Ruin II would still be used (especially Ruin II for weaving oGCDs) but you would just be spamming fewer Ruins.

-Spell Speed would be slightly nicer for SMNs
Since a smaller % of SMN's overall dps would be coming from non-casted sources (due to a weaker pet) and a greater % of their overall dps would come from casted things (new summon spells). BLM would still benefit a lot more than SMN from Spell Speed, but every bit helps.

-Help alleviate SMNs' MP problems on long fights
It might not solve their MP probs entirely, but if the summon spells were made to have the right MP cost then it could definitely help MP consumption the long run, since several Ruin casts would be replaced with much more MP-efficient summon spells.

-Improve SMNs' AoE ability
Lets face it. There's no reason BLM should outclass SMN this badly at AoE. I'm not saying make them equal at it, but closer would be fair. Look at the melee classes: they all specialize in single-target dps with varying ability to AoE, and they are pretty balanced. There's no reason both dps-casters shouldn't be able to specialize in AoE and still be balanced. These new summon spells are NOT spammable, remember.

-Slightly improve SMNs' burst ability
Being able to cast a really strong summon spell at the right moment would really help burst. Summoners CAN burst pretty decently, but DoT classes are inherently at a disadvantage here and summon spells would definitely help.


How would this affect SMN dps?
SMN would lose Tri-disaster (lol), Enkindle, and be relegated to a slightly weaker pet. But remember, Enkindle is on a 5min CD and Emerald Carby is functionally the same as Garuda-egi, complete with its own Contagion.
You'd also be casting fewer Ruins, in favor of casting summon spells, and have slightly less mobility (due to 4sec cast on summons).

In return, SMN would gain 3 powerful summon spells that are more MP-efficient than Ruin and can hit multiple targets.
Notice I didnt list Potencies for the summon spells. This is because I'm not going to do the math on what the exact amount of dps lost would be in order to figure out what the new spells would need to be at to maintain current single-target dps output. If somebody else feels like doing that and wants to reply, please do! I just know the Potency would be pretty high.

Suffice it to say that [Enkindle + lost Ruins + (Egi dps - Carby dps) = Summon spell dps] with a lower overall MP cost, higher burst and AoE potential, and greater benefit from Spell Speed.


I like SMN gameplay how it is! Would't this change it too much?
No. It wouldn't change hardly at all. Everything would be the same except you'd be casting a summon spell sometimes instead of Ruin. DoT management and even pet management would be the same as it is now.
True, you would no longer have a choice between 2 dps pets. It would only be Emerald Carby. But they could easily add a melee Carbuncle in the expansion.

Wouldn't this go against the lore?
No. You wouldnt be summoning a full Primal. Just as the Egis are small portions of the Primals' power, the summon spell would only tap into a portion as well. It would just be in a short, powerful burst rather than a sustained entity.
They wouldn't even really need to change the class quests much (except for a little dialogue) - fighting the Egis would just allow you to summon that Primal's essence (new spell) instead of the Egi.

But...dat Tri-disaster utility!!
Honestly, SMNs didnt have access to Blizzard 2 when Tri-disaster was developed. SMN would still have a bind spell now with blizzard 2, albeit short-range instead of targeted. I think most SMNs wouldn't mind.
The best part of Tri-disaster imo is the casting animation. Hey - they could make that casting animation for the summon spells! Lol


What do you all think?
Its late and I probably forgot a something I was gonna say somewhere, but I'd like to know people's opinions.
Again, I'm not begging for SMN fixes. This is just a bit of theorycrafting, if you want to even call it that, for fun.

I like the idea... but something is missing. What happens to the actually Ifrit Egi Summon III?

Are you saying do away with the Egi's and turn them into actual spells? If so, Then summoner actually loses ALOT of utility... such as Titan as a mini tank in certain instances (rare but it does happen).

Overall I like the idea. Although I do like Enkindle, I wish the recast was more like 3 minutes.

I guess I'm looking for clarification on the actual "pet."

Yeah, the SMN would have Topaz Carby for tanking. His potency could be slightly improved if he was just unable to do what Titan-egi does, but I dont think that would be the case.
You'd have Emerald Carby (complete with his own version of Contagion) for dps, and Topaz Carby for a tank pet. They could even add a melee pet in the expansion if they wanted to.

Egi's would just be a thing you fight to unlock the summon spells. And something that evil SMN uses in the storyline.

Ok. Thanks for the clarification.

Here comes the but.... I really don't like Topaz or Emerald Carby... I'd prefer Garuda and Titan over him tbqh, so I would think there to be an option to choose, if players preferred one over the other...

If Carby actually had buffs of his own similar to what he was in the past (protection status buffs) I'd be more inclined to like him more. But I loathed leveling arcanist with carbuncle as an offensive type summon as that was painful to me to see carby in that light... It's comparable to allowing your mechanic to cook your dinner while he fixed multiple cars in 110 degree weather. Meanwhile none of this includes soap, water, gloves or any disinfectants...

There's the above AND the fact that it would still resemble Arcanist way too much...

Yeah, thats a matter of preference of course. Although a lot of people actually seem to prefer the look of Carbunkle to the Egi's. At least people I've talked to and the majority of posts I've read.

As for resembling Arcanist... well all the Jobs in this game strongly resemble their base classes. Thats just how this game is designed. But summoning an impressive-looking summon spell 3x a minute would help I think.

Since they will be adding more and more summons through the patches, it would indeed be cool if they gave Summoner a unique attack for each summon, while using Carby as the main pet.

I think that Yuna from Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy is the best example of how this could be achieved: video

Must say i really love this idea, and kinda off topic but how would people like summoners weapon to be changed to a pole (not to be confused with staves or rods)? Would require summoner to be split from arcanist thnx to how the armory system work, but just an idea that sounds fun. Also what about removing emerald/topaz carby in favor of one with two attacks and one party buff and contagion? Hmm a melee mage with flashy summon spells like the video while still keeping its dot aspect :3

I really like your idea. I'm one of those, give me back my carby people. ;) that said, This would go a long long way to giving summoner their summoner feel; and instead of new egi in 3.0 the new Summon Spells. one single target, two aoe (I want shiva ;p)

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it would be very impractical to make a new pet egi for each summon and that we'd probably end up using only the strongest one anyway, so I've come up with a few other primal skills to support OP's idea and the new 3.0 job levels (they are all off-GCD skills and prevent you from casting another summon for 5sec after use):

Ifrit: single target attack with a potency of 110 and 2sec Stun effect, 30sec cooldown;
Titan: reduce the damage taken by the user and the pet by 20% for 15sec, 120sec cooldown;
Garuda: aoe attack to the target and the enemies nearby it with a potency of 90, 30sec cooldown;
Leviathan: delivers an attack with a potency of 30 every time the user or the pet get hit for 20sec, 120sec cooldown;
Moggle Mog XII: refresh MP with a potency of 80 for 20sec (similar to WHM's Shroud of Saints), 180sec cooldown;
Ramuh: single target attack with a potency of 140 which spreads and hits nearby enemies with a potency of 70, 90sec cooldown;
Shiva: aoe attack with a potency of 30 and a 20sec Bind effect (this would actually substitute Tri-disaster), 30sec cooldown;
Odin: instantly kills the target (works only on trash mobs, misses on others), 300sec cooldown.

P.S: The potencies and durations are just there to give a general idea, they would surely need to be adjusted and balanced according to the other jobs and skills.

This was pretty much my suggestion in my thread here, but much much more thorough. Kudos.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...n-in-expansion

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hammerfist

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it would be very impractical to make a new pet egi for each summon and that we'd probably end up using only the strongest one anyway

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Yes, this is why I believe Square needs to redesign how summons work cause they will be cornering themselves by trying to make every egi a useful pet. By changing summons to a spell we add to our rotation, they can even design summons that are purely utility based, like casting a party-wide buff (or like your suggestion about Titan reducing damage taken for a short duration)

One suggestion I mentioned later in the above thread is that these summons could cost an Aetherflow charge to balance them out. Get rid of Fester too so we have the Aetherflow charges to spare (and Energy Drain can then be added back to our rotation for mana, which we sorely need).

to be honest, i don't like the summon version that you suggested, its like ff summon ages ago, we don't need that, i prefer existing summon and size doesn't matter unless its created a little bit detail version, i think created it in the size of the hyur race should not block any player view. what dev should look right now is how they want to increase mp management for smn job..not arcanist since sch player will get mad if they revise arc skill n such. i prefer change 3 disaster to be mp buff instead since its totally useless skill for smn. Then the melee egi's resistance should be increase since it will most likely to die easily compare to the casting type. contagion? to be honest, i dun care much about that skill coz it depend on the player playstyle. its not necessary skill for smn. if you can maintain your dots efficiently, contagion is not an issue here. hope dev listening.

one more thing to add..make bane targeted all enemy in the radius instead of 3 coz all class aoe skill targeted all enemy in the radius, so why bane cannot.

forget last thing..that enkindle cd should only be 2 minutes since its the only skill that burst smn dps..and the only skill that make smn outshine other class..n the potency also is just normal like blm fire 3..so why need longer cd..hope dev listening..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cattastro

to be honest, i don't like the summon version that you suggested, its like ff summon ages ago, we don't need that, i prefer existing summon and size doesn't matter unless its created a little bit detail version, i think created it in the size of the hyur race should not block any player view. what dev should look right now is how they want to increase mp management for smn job..not arcanist since sch player will get mad if they revise arc skill n such. i prefer change 3 disaster to be mp buff instead since its totally useless skill for smn. Then the melee egi's resistance should be increase since it will most likely to die easily compare to the casting type. contagion? to be honest, i dun care much about that skill coz it depend on the player playstyle. its not necessary skill for smn. if you can maintain your dots efficiently, contagion is not an issue here. hope dev listening.

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Your comment made me remember 2 things:
- Summons have always been single-effect spells in every original FF title, they became "pets" only after FFX (and imho have always been poorly implemented since then), so by going back to single-effect summons Summoners would actually be more "FF-ish";
- Emerald Carbuncle does actually have a skill identical to Contagion, it's called "Shining Emerald", so one more reason to just use Carby as main pet. :)

As a career SMN, I fully support the OP's idea. An excellent way to balance SMN while making us feel like we're ACTUAL Summoners!

Why can't they just balance the dam classes? is it really that hard? are we back to the final fantasy 11 lolPUP days? WTF