SMN Idea. Egi Swap

I played smn back in ff11 and the one thing I miss is having so many pets and abilities to choose from. This is not a should we have Ramuh, Levy, Shiva egi thread. There's enough of those and we all know the answer is HELL YES!

But this thread is about an idea I've been having. I feel the pet mechanics in this game could be better. As a smn I have 3 pets but I feel the decision comes down to 2, in most cases 1. No matter what pet I am using the only things I need to look out for are if rouse, spur and enkindle are always being used when they are available. Then sometimes I need to make sure my pet isn't standing in a spot about to get cleaved by Sephirot or whoever. Ifrit I leave on sic all the time. Garuda is on obey for contagion and I manually trigger aerial slash when its rdy. Titan is only for solo, I use ifrit for trash mobs and Garuda for boss fights. Most of the time I am using Garuda but when an add phase pops there are times when I wonder if it would be a little faster if I had Ifrit instead? I could swift cast him out but thats a large chunk of mp and swift might be on cd when I want Garuda back.
Then I thought, blm has a cd to switch between astral fire and umbral ice. What if we had say a 30 sec to 1 min cd that would allow us to switch out our egi? If it's already smned then were just switching elements instead of smning another one so no need for the near 2k mp.
If we had something like that I can predict a few things.
Swift Cast can remain on CD for when we need a quick shadowflare or a rez
When an add phase pops I would consider switching in Ifrit and switching back to Garuda when the boss comes back for contagion.
If I got creative with multitasking and my group was fighting a boss that did a lot of raid wide physical dmg I would switch in Ifrit for radiant shield instead of Garuda's aerial slash. (I think to keep it fair all the pets would have to share all their CDs otherwise people would use all of Ifrit's abilities then switch in another pet and use all theirs rinse repeat)
Slightly off topic. I feel Titan has no use outside solo. It be nice if he had some party buff like Ifrit but defensive in nature. Maybe a little bonus protection against some nasty aoe then switch back to Garuda.
SMN would require more multitasking to be mastered but more rewarding to those who can pull it off.

While I'm on the subject lets make this an Arcanist ability so SCH can enjoy this too. Have Selene out for those dps checks and swap in Eos for the healing after the big dmg raid wide aoe.

I really like your idea for a party damage mitigation move on Titan fitting into this. A costly but sort of save the day thing for the 'finisher moves from bosses'

Reason I play MCH now is because I like swapping pets based on the situation, mainly a pet for AoE and one for Single Target. I've mentioned this many times on SMN posts but gave up on SE listening.....

The expansion was a good opportunity for SE to implement such a dynamic. That way, they could still maintain their design of making the SMN Job more player-character focused without diminishing the value of the Egis. Maybe in 4.0 they could introduce it, but I have my doubts.

The pet swapping idea is something fun to think about. I always thought, in general, we don't get to focus enough on Party Enhancement and Debuffs in this game. I think beyond just the swapping, there needs to be a few party enhancement abilities.

Giving Garuda something along the lines of a black mages manaward or something around those lines. Titan, could really come out if we gave him something like aoe stoneskin or an aoe eye. Of course other jobs will have to be adjusted, so I think that's where you start going down a rabbit hole.

Still, I like the idea of swapping..not so much that it is needed but to a point where you feel you're actually commanding the pets and they're with you in battle.

What, if any, CD would we be seeing for this? Anything reducing its CD due to other casts? Anything proccing a reduced CD penalty or free (unaffected by CD) cast?

Some other concerns:

>> Is it really worth having an extra spell over, or should it be embedded into the Summon casts themselves?

>>> Is not being able to swap one's pet such a disadvantage that reducing the CD on Swiftcast across the board wouldn't fill this need? Is identity so disadvantaged?

(I'd wager it would be, if the pets were just distinct and relevant enough to have balanced, rotational and situational (rather than niche), and generally engaging differences in the first place. That said, I don't think this one small change will go far in reaching that goal. Rather, being able to more easily swap out our pet would be the finishing touch to a system we don't have. Improving pet control itself, for instance, would probably be the first of many steps, and reorienting gameplay around the caster-pet synergy a necessary component thereafter.)

What they *should* have done was unsummon pet once you used its Super. It would then give you an instant cast to summon any other pets for 10s, while the one that used its Super is on CD.
This makes summoning once more at the core of the summoner.

Keeping it simple while honoring the core of the job's lore is more important than being fancy.
I feel my above suggestion was originally intended but was shut down on a dev meeting from player feedback as being *too hard*.

Now that HW came out, and playstyle gets to be more hardcore, the above job mechanic works in concert with DWT.

Job would consist of: 1) Keep dots rolling.
2) Maximize Ruin III in DWT.
3) Keep rotating pets as much as possible

The third pillar would be replacing Ruin II/Ruin I spam. Which is the dumbest of the SMN job to be honest.

I don't play SMN but i'm curious about how people who play it feel about the glamour aspect SE has planned for the egis. Like you'd be able to use all of Garuda's abilities but glamour the pet to look like Ifrit, Titan or Carbunkle.

IMO the concept of SMN should be to harness the power of the primals and utilize their unique abilities in the appropriate battle situation; hence summoning their egis because they embody that specific primal's power. Doesn't the idea of Glamouring the pets kind of cheapen the Job? Wouldn't be any real point in swapping. If I'm wrong, please tell me.

Honestly felt like this should be a SCH's ultimate at 70, but with the addition of resetting their current CDs and disabling the Summon/Summon II for 30 seconds. While under the effect of Dissipation, remove Dissipation. (Summons the alternate fairy that was used in Dissipation.) Quote for emphasis.

Quote:

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Swap (Insert SCH based skill name here)
Cool Down: 180 seconds

Your command Lilly to change her aspect. Current Pet is sent away and is replaced by the alternate.
While under the effect of Dissipation, remove Dissipation and the alternate pet that was not consumed by dissipation, is summoned.

Additional Effect: Fey Wind, Fey Caress, Silent Dusk, Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination, and Fey Covenant have their Cool Down reset.

Can only be used under the effect of Dissipation or when a Pet is present. Summon and Summon II are disabled after use for 30 seconds.

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I think having an egi swap mechanic when you use enkindle would be a great idea. It fits with the current summoner dynamic, and allows for each egi to be viable in battle. Maybe place Enkindle on a 30 second cooldown, to line up with swiftcast, and then each summon 1-6 i guess, have a 1 minute cooldown after using enkindle. This would prevent you from spamming enkindles over and over. But for this methid to work i would think enkindle should cost MP, but then the total MP count would cost too much. But yes i can see an egi swapping mechanic working, and making Summoner feel more traditional, at least to all the nay sayers, lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eloah

Yes

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That's what I was saying in my post.
But don't make it have cast time for summon after enkindle.
Casting Enkindle makes pet do super. Then unsummons pet. Then you have 10s to summon another different pet (as the one that enkindled is on CD).
That was you cycle through your pets.
Swiftcast is cross-skill. It should never be thought of being a *core* ability for the job - that's why I suggested the simple mechanic of unsummoning and cast time removal after enkindling.

Maybe someone with a better grasp of the English language can express themselves better than I regarding it, as I fear I may be confusing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tarta

expressing themselves fine, XD

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you're expressing yourself fine. I was only giving a slight alternative to the idea, since balancing will have to be an issue. yeah the 10s idea is good, but might not work well if you have to break for mechanics, and can't summon right away, then you'd be stuck regardless. i think i wanted to edit my post a little, but got distracted. I wanted to indicate that Enkindle might need an MP cost, but that Summon cost would need to decrease, but I know that would effect Scholar which is in a better. The 10s idea is good, don't get me wrong, but i personally don't feel it provides the balance we would need. But I'm not saying my idea is the right one just another option.

Also, thank you for being one of the sensible people with actual useful ideas for making Summoner better. I can't tell you how much it gives me hope, lol.