So how can SE make SMN better?

Now that we have BLU and it's a better SMN than SMN is... How could they make SMN more of a SMN?

Just to clarify, we're only talking thematically, right? Like, it's not a bad job at all; it's just not a real SMN?

Change most of the personal attacks to various Call abilities that poof a primal-egi or demi-primal into existance just for a moment to perform the attack animation. Yeah, they can keep a few attacks for themselves, but really I think the whole SMN theme could be satisfied by just renaming and reanimating most of the attacks to be one-off summon abilities.

In particular, Ruin, the spammable filler attack, should be "Call", and select at random the demi- or -egi form of any primal they've defeated, to perform a simple attack. So instead of Ruin-Ruin-Ruin maybe you get Call Ramuh-egi, Call Leviathan-egi, Call Demi-GKMMXII (again, randomly selected, all the same action button).

My heart did a little frowny face when I saw that a non-job was getting levi, shiva, and ramuh spells before me. :(

^
I didn't even think of that till now; that is quite the kick to the face. :( Hopefully SE will finally get off their Bahamut theme obsession and start giving SMN more egi and demi egi to utilize.

Don't get me wrong though; I LOVE my demi Bahamut and Bahamut Trance. But they could have at least given us a new Elder Primal trance at least for Stormsblood. Been wanting something maybe connected to the Warring Triad or Odin for the longest time since, like Bahamut lore-wise, they both have giant reserves of aether SMN could utilize to summon them in some shape or form. :)

Less focus on Bahamut, more focus on literally every other primal.

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Originally Posted by Burningskull

Now that we have BLU and it's a better SMN than SMN is... How could they make SMN more of a SMN?

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SMN is fine. The only real change it needs is to Aetherflow usage...which granted for me is usually because I fat finger it, or muscle-memory it when it would be otherwise wasted. -____-;

New egi glamours. Gimme a Ravana or Zurvan or Susano over Ifrit any day.

Sephirot Egi when?

I'm gonna be the odd man out but I like SMN as it is and am curious on how the are gonns expand upon it in 5.0. If BLU wasn't a gimmick class and served a point in endgsme and not just a time filler, I might have a slightly different opinion.
Not to mention the battle team doesn't seem to have a creative bone in their bodies, i rather not do anything too unique and break the job

How does a mini-game compete with a job, though?

Putting BLU aside as, well, as irrelevant as it is, though... Fix pet re-activeness, increase to 6 possible pets (or, at least 1 per element), add Trance variety where Bahamut is just an Aethertrail combination of juxtaposed elements, and add a bit more utility to our entranced burst (e.g. caster-pet-combined Aerial Blast, Inferno).

Oh I love how smn plays right now, but thematically, THOSE ARE MINE YOU THIEVING BLUE BANDIT!!

I mean all they would have to do is add more summon theme to ogcd

Fester get a titan theme to it
Pain flare shoots sparks like ramuh
Shadow flare becomes like a water bubble for leviathon
And bane can be garuda
Just adding the silouette of the primal after each use making it seem like you are actually summon something to use these attacks

If any one has ever seen the game Folklore for the PS3, I would want SMN to work like that games gameplay just in MMO form.

This issue is complicated, mostly because SMN is good as it is right now. It's powerful and has a pretty unique and interesting rotation compared to other jobs.

The simplest thing to make the job actually feel like a Summoner is to completely rework it from the ground up, probably separating it from SCH somehow in the process. But they can't do this while there are still a bunch of people enjoying it as it is.

We won’t get anything because people who don’t play SMN want more egi glams for a job that shouldn’t have egis to begin with lol.

But since we do, hopefully fix the pet AI. SE deserves no more pet jobs until they learn how to do it properly. Next we need to venture more towards how SMN plays now but more of other primals because everything 50-70 is Bahamut related.

I like the summoning of Bahamut that’s like the first real SMN thing we have ever done so next we should be doing that with other primals and such with the auto and their signature move of course aka ahk morn.

well.. people usually arent very good at this game, thats why they make content easier und classes less complex. Dont expect anything in future that gives summoner more egis or other stuff, lol

i find SB has been the biggest slap in the face for egi-glamours they outright use 3 different egis in 1 job quest instance those being Sephirot(biggest offence), Twintania(Meh more pure dragon) and a copy person(forgot name this could be cool but has a high chance of barely changing smn) you also still have the Ramuh egi that has never left his fight and was outright teased in HW job story :/ poor smns you deserve better

I've had a simple proposition to stray away from the "dragonmage" theme it has right now and to embrace more of its former aesthetics:

1) Change Dreadwyrm Trance name to Aether Trance. Chage Enkindle Bahamut to Enkindle II. Change the dragon-themed UI to something more neutral.

2) Add a SMN sidequest to unlock the "Demi-Glamours", so you can go around collecting skins to replace Demi-Bahamut. It would be only aesthetic, the Akh Morn spell being swapped by the signature move of the other Primal you'd be using - damage would still be the same.

3) Profit. You'd be able to choose any other "big summon" to use. There would be no need to retcon the job quests, as Bahamut would be the default one. Can you imagine summoning Demi-Leviathan to Tidal Wave with Enkindle II?

4) Bonus: Give also more options besides the carbuncles to glam the egis. If not a different creature, at least more precious stone colors, like amethyst, aquamarine, diamond...?

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Can you imagine summoning Demi-Leviathan to Tidal Wave with Enkindle II?

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The problem is that Levi is not on the same level of Bahamut. While they did basically say you have no Egis past the first three Primals because your aetherpool won't be able to keep up, comparing Levi and Bahamut who's been feeding on the prayers of dragons for thousands of years is a bit too much.
Right now, the only other alternatives I can see to Bahamut are Alexander, and the Warring Triads, the latter amounting mostly to the fact they too were bathing in tormented prayers for as long as Bahamut thanks to the Allag.
That said, I'd still like to see normal glamours for those guys. We saw Sephirot egis are already in the game, after all.

Not having come with any expectations from other games, I love "dragonmage" summoner. It's impressive, it's MSQ-relevant and it's fun to play.

I don't have a problem with how Summoner plays right now. The classic Final Fantasy Summoner characters (Rydia, Garnet and Yuna) always had a secondary job anyway, and the poison mage + pet works well enough in that regard.

However...

Just having three summons in a game that, lore-wise, has a crapload of summons in its world, feels disappointing.

And the thing is I think this could be solved with minimal effort, working almost exclusively with assets that are already in the game. Just take care of two things:

1 - Change the Egi designs.
I want to summon Titan, not a bunch of floating rocks. Use the actual primal models. "But well, we can't have the gigantic primals following us". I'm not even sure about that, because we can be in densely populated areas mounting a freaking whale, but okay, pets are heavier, I understand. Then at the very least make them chocobo-sized. We know pets can be at least the size of a chocobo without causing problems. At least I would prefer to have a chocobo-sized Titan than a bunch of rocks.

But what about the lore? Well, say that these mini versions of primals are the Egi. Maybe the designs we have now are their base form, but once a Summoner becomes good enough, they are able to turn their Egi into a form that more closely resembles the original thing. Put this in a quest to unlock the chocobo-sized models.

2 - Add other primals to the glamour system.
We have an attacker, tank and caster pet. Add other primals as glamour to this system, while working just a bit with their animations. For example, in an attack where Ifrit slashes the enemy with his claws, a glamoured Odin slashes in the same way with his sword. An attack where Garuda fires a "wind ball" can be an attack where Ramuh fires a "thunder ball". Or if they could work on new animations, make it so the attacks deal the same damage. This way, people can just use their favorite summons, without having to worry much about which one is the best one, since the differences would be purely aesthetic (at least within one of three classes).

And since we would be working with mini versions of the game models, it would be a matter of taking the models that are already in the game. The only thing that would probably have to be worked on would be an easier interface (not unlike the Blue Spellbook) to do all this. Of course, the Egi glamour we have now could still be available.

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Now maybe SMN could use a bigger rework, I guess. I just think that this would be a good cost-efficiency solution, since it takes almost no new assets to create and would probably be enough to satisfy a lot of players (I would be cool with just this).

Honestly, summoners are a pathetic Everquest clone. The pets look like their pre-update pets. In EQ magicians had way more utility and were interesting. Summoners in this game are sad. I wouldn't even rate summoners as worthy of a WoW lock ripoff at this point. Clearly SE can't handle pet classes. I loved the EQ Magician and Necro.

Summoners 5.0:

Expectation: New Egis, Primal based attacks.
Reality: Ruin V, Ruin VI

I agree the primal spells for blue would have been much better suited to summoner style wise

Needs:
-Ramuh Trance
-Bismark Trance
-Ravanah Trance
-Leviathan Trance
-Shiva Trance

Exchange those for the dot skills, and let each trance leave dots.

Aesthetic problem solved.

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Originally Posted by Burningskull

Now that we have BLU and it's a better SMN than SMN is... How could they make SMN more of a SMN?

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http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/up...ven-harder.jpg

Casting a spell isn't the same as summoning a pet monster. The job you're looking for is called Evoker, a kind of prelude to Blue Mage.

Definitely agree with changing the theme of summoner's abilities would help a bit. I like the ruin suggestion. Also casting bio with ifrit out could cause burns (with fiery visuals, consider the dissida Yuna presentation), etc. Add more egi glamours. Different demi-summons would be nice, I imagine they could focus on the "main" primals for now (no stormblood demi-primal, but make sure there is a titan, shiva, ifrit, ramuh, levithan demi). I think a way to manage this many demi would be when you go into trance you get a little pop up bar (like the special actions to an instance, shields, quick event things) and that bar is filled with three or so random demi(s). With perhaps one Bahamut demi always being available (for balance/consistency). Now you go into trance and the magic damage is really high so you bring out Ramuh demi who happens to have a buff to the party reducing magic damage (besides other skills like Ramuh's "ahk morn").

Finally I think they should consider doing a sort of WoW/Aion upgrade to the egi. In WoW you could unlock upgraded visuals for your pet and in Aion they had tiers (with the basic tier looking alright and the top tier looking like a full on primal almost lol). Although to be honest I imagine they could just make the trance state maintainable and not upgrade the egi but just combat replace them with demi-primals (such that if you're doing well and it isn't down time during combat you're almost always up with a demi-primal and the demi-primals are just better looking better egis).

so imo tl;dr

• "upgrade" non-primal related spells to become primal related
• add more demi options
• egi glamour system
• mechanic for egi to either permanently upgrade (egi glamour quests/"solo tournament"?) or combat mechanics (spur type spells going an extra step, or consistently more demi primal content)
• profit

I liked that they added ahk morn/demi-bahamut but definitely feel "where's the rest of them?" (at least the main elemental ones) lol. Better than where we started but not as summonery as I had hoped (coming from FFXI it was fun to run around with them out, although it took a long time for them to not be just a buff dispenser xD).

I'll be honest and just say anything about summons is the right direction and anything not about summons is probably the wrong direction, we don't need any more arcanist content for summoner lol (imo, not only that but we could do with less arcanist content inside summoner). Beyond "more primal" I'm pretty open to suggestion, primals are neat man :).

So basically not this:

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Originally Posted by MOthe

Summoners 5.0:

Expectation: New Egis, Primal based attacks.
Reality: Ruin V, Ruin VI

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lol, also have a tearful +1 XD

Egi glamours first.
Bismark for Titan
Ramuh for Garuda
Ravana for Ifrit


Then expand the demi system to cover Alexander and Leviathan as alternatives to Bahamut.
Leviathan and Bahamut could be distinguished by one being single target and the other being AoE.
Alex could be more support oriented with a party wide damage buff in addition.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

I mean all they would have to do is add more summon theme to ogcd

Fester get a titan theme to it
Pain flare shoots sparks like ramuh
Shadow flare becomes like a water bubble for leviathon
And bane can be garuda
Just adding the silouette of the primal after each use making it seem like you are actually summon something to use these attacks

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I really like this idea

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/up...ven-harder.jpg

Casting a spell isn't the same as summoning a pet monster. The job you're looking for is called Evoker, a kind of prelude to Blue Mage.

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To be fair, they kind of combined the two with DWT

I like how smn functions. It's unique, it works, and it's a strong job that doesn't need a full rework it just needs some changes to action names and FX. Bane could becomes Ifrit focused with maybe a buff like less potency decay to make the change in name and fx mean something, Fester; Titan, Shadow Flare; Garuda, Tri Bind; Ramuh (only during dwtrance) Painflare; Leviathan, Ruin III; Shiva. I would say Ruin IV; Ravana and Devition; Bismarck and becomes a smn self cast ability but let's be honest most only care about the first 6 Primals.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/up...ven-harder.jpg

Casting a spell isn't the same as summoning a pet monster. The job you're looking for is called Evoker, a kind of prelude to Blue Mage.

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News flash Sommuner is an Evoker....DWT ring a bell. Evoker fits Summoner more then dot mage with a pet....if the pets were Demi form then sure but no just a jacked up pet with horrible AI.

Got a whole write up on how to make it...feel more like a summoner. Though I do disagree with your assessment, since even at the very least Summoners have four Primal specific attacks in their Kindle's on top of...you know...SUMMONING the Egi of the primal themselves. Blue mages get one lesser attack each from them. Though, truth be known, I do think summoners could have done with having Egi specific attacks based on which Egi they currently had summoned. I mean one cast from the summoner.

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Originally Posted by TheHeavenAbyss

I want to summon Titan, not a bunch of floating rocks. Use the actual primal models ... at the very least make them chocobo-sized. We know pets can be at least the size of a chocobo without causing problems. At least I would prefer to have a chocobo-sized Titan than a bunch of rocks.
... once a Summoner becomes good enough, they are able to turn their Egi into a form that more closely resembles the original thing. Put this in a quest to unlock the chocobo-sized models. .

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Totally down with this idea here. As our level increases with every expansion it just feels like the disparity between Egi and Summoner becomes greater and greater. We can now summon Demi-Primals if Bahamut is anything to go by, so the job presentation of Egi’s and Demi-Primals just seems to clash too much to be consistent design and gameplay wise. Letting us “evolve” our egis would be a fun new growth for Summoner and play into that “true summoner” fantasy many players desire. It would also presumably prevent too much ability bloat since they could merely be traits that directly change the egi’s. I’d main summoner in a heartbeat if we could get the proper primal models eventually!

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Just to clarify, we're only talking thematically, right? Like, it's not a bad job at all; it's just not a real SMN?

Change most of the personal attacks to various Call abilities that poof a primal-egi or demi-primal into existance just for a moment to perform the attack animation. Yeah, they can keep a few attacks for themselves, but really I think the whole SMN theme could be satisfied by just renaming and reanimating most of the attacks to be one-off summon abilities.

In particular, Ruin, the spammable filler attack, should be "Call", and select at random the demi- or -egi form of any primal they've defeated, to perform a simple attack. So instead of Ruin-Ruin-Ruin maybe you get Call Ramuh-egi, Call Leviathan-egi, Call Demi-GKMMXII (again, randomly selected, all the same action button).

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Pretty much this

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/up...ven-harder.jpg

Casting a spell isn't the same as summoning a pet monster. The job you're looking for is called Evoker, a kind of prelude to Blue Mage.

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I'm pretty sure Evoker is a prelude to Summoner... at least that's what the summoner af gear and Final Fantasy III tell me.

Okay, I'll defend my position.

Final Fantasy 3 was the first title to introduce Evoker and Summoner. Evoker used the Summon's enemy skill (Mind blast, Stomp, Protective Light, Demon Eye, Etc...) and was cast as a spell random between Direct Attack and Indirect. Summoner actually summoned the monster on screen which then used the traditional abilites like Diamond Dust, Inferno, Judgement Bolt. Evoker only appeared in FFIII were as Summoner continued through the series and Blue Mage appeared in FFV and continued throughout. Now I can't interview Hiroyuki Ito or Akihiko Matsui about the development idea for Blue Mage in FFV, but its reasonable to assume the idea of a mage casting enemy skills first came from Evoker eariler in the series.

As for Heavensward, yep DWT and the entire design on Summoner in 3.0 was based more on the player doing abilities. Stormblood on the other hand brought the job back closer to 2.0 design where pet summoning and pet focused abilities came into play. Again, I assume this was done based on player feedback through out the 3.0 series.

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Originally Posted by TheHeavenAbyss

Snip

1 - Change the Egi designs.

2 - Add other primals to the glamour system.

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Now I remember the original idea behind Egi was they wanted the Primals we fight feel big and dangerous and felt smaller version would diminish this. I also remember them saying that they were worried large verison of the primal would block other players view, similar to what happened with Demi Bahamut in 4.0. I would like to see DWT reworked into something similar to Demi-Bahamut were the Egi you have summoned grows into a more larger version and deathflare is replaced with enkindle making the Egi feel more powerful. But who knows, that my be how they bring Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva into our arsenal.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

I would like to see DWT reworked into something similar to Demi-Bahamut were the Egi you have summoned grows into a more larger version and deathflare is replaced with enkindle making the Egi feel more powerful. But who knows, that my be how they bring Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva into our arsenal.

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That seems like a pretty sensible route for them to take if they do hopefully double down on the Demi-Primal route. As much as Deathflare and Ahk Morn look great, the excitement and polish has quickly diminished over the years since there’s very little variety in our “ultimate” attacks aesthetics besides them, if you don’t include Enkindle. Summoner was in most FF titles for me, by far the best job in the series if I wanted to enjoy a plethora of epic and varied elemental attacks, even moreso than Black Mage. With that in mind I’d love to see some new primal animations that will take the focus back onto Summoner’s more traditional presentation instead of it being essentially a Dragon Mage as it feels now. Laser beams are cool and all, but until I get my Tidal Wave or Judgement Bolt I’ll still have work to do :p

Imo SE should combine DWT, Summon Bahamut, and Rouse into the same cooldown, remove the Aetherflow lockouts and Tri-disaster reset, plus all the random DWT bonuses added in 4.1, then buff Bane a bit and normalize Tri-Bind as the AoE filler spell, then go from there. HW SMN played out a lot better compared to this current iteration, with the sole exception being the timer on Aethertrail back then and the addition of Lucid Dreaming in Stormblood overloading us with mana to dump into Ruin III. Doing that would open up the ability to make DWT and Demi-Bahamut far more interesting and allow SE to actually add a real filler rotation that could integrate the Egi into it, though I'd also like to see a trait enhancing their Aetherflow abilities during DWT/Bahamut as well to make it clearer to people that's when you want to use it.

Above all else though, make Manaward a role action or add a personal defensive cooldown already. Sustain is one thing but we take far more damage than our pets do and it'd be nice to have a useful button to help keep ourselves alive like every other class has. Physick heals for less than an in-combat natural HP regen tick now.

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

Above all else though, make Manaward a role action or add a personal defensive cooldown already. Sustain is one thing but we take far more damage than our pets do and it'd be nice to have a useful button to help keep ourselves alive like every other class has. Physick heals for less than an in-combat natural HP regen tick now.

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No shocker here: even if a bit multi-hoop, I'd like to see it as a dynamic, native skill, likely tied to only 1 of the 3, or 2 of 6 if increased, pets, rather than another identity-be-damned Role Action. Let Garuda give you wings to cast while moving, Ifrit to give instant casts with minor cleave component when in melee, and Titan give you a debuff-/knockback-absorbing shield.