6.0 Summoner Speculation

So, what do you all think Summoner will look like next expansion? I myself honestly don’t have a clue what they’re going to do, as the job still feel a bit of a jumbled mess right now, especially in comparison to its caster siblings RDM and BLM. The DoT’s, Aetherflow, Egi’s don’t seem to mesh that well together, and just feels like a bit of a hodgepodge of busywork meant to keep you pressing buttons until the *actual* fun part of the rotation comes about (the Demi-Primals)

I’d be fine with them keeping the DoT’s, since there are many who enjoy them, but get rid of Aetherflow and the Egi’s and just do a constant stream of Demi-Primals that alter your spells like Phoenix does.

Aetherflow and Fester will be gone. You'll get a new OGCD here to fill the gap.

They'll merge DTrance and Bahamut into a singular buff window.

The new capstone will be wrapping themselves into a lore appropriate Primal.

What's likely to happen the most is Dreadwyrm Trance and Demi-Bahamut being merged just like with Demi-Phoenix. The good thing about this is the phase being more convenient to play, the bad thing is we lose on mobility now that Dreadwyrm Trance isn't its own thing. I suspect the Demi summons will still behave the same and won't be rooted onto the floor like people have suggested.

They might also attempt to make the job's abilities blend better together. The lack of it is one of the biggest complaints of Shadowbringers Summoner.

Also something I'm hoping that might have a good chance of happening is removing DoT gimmicks in favor of something more thematic.

-I think that we will have a new gcd, the ruin spell will be removed.
-New dot name and animation but same effect and duration .
- one new spell for use etherflow
-(painflare and fester updated )
-energy drain and energy siphon deleted '' remplace by a trait '' generate automatically '' ether in battle'' like whm passive '
use 3 etherflow allows to use deathflare .

Egi assault turn in demi-assaut no cd and instant spell, only will use like actual pheonix system '' fountain of fire-> brand of purgatory ''
, enkindle reworked, ruin IV deleted .
Egi deleted '' .

Transe system reworked into
a spell for swapping demi with 20s CD

Devotion deleted and all demi will have a special effect '' like Bahamut 10% damage boost for the summoner '', pheonix the same regen effect, the one demi 3% damage boost for the team '' .

Honestly I think 5.XX Summoner has everything it needs as far as a tool set, just needs to be worked to mesh better.

People have responded positively to how Firebird trance and Demi-Phoenix work so I would expect DWT and DBahamut to redesigned to work similar.

I would expect Summon II, the tank Egi to be dropped all together since this has been the slowly happening since 4.0

I would believe the next evolution of Summoner would be one and done summons were as you call it, effect happens, and it goes away. Whether that method is built up, channeled, or just a normal cast/cooldown is another discussion.

I fully expect dwt and bahamut to be combined, and it's going to be another in a line of terrible changes aimed at simplifying the job - that only ends up making the job worse to play in actual content.

honestly if they fix the pet que and add another trance I think it would be perfect

- DWT and Demi Baha being merged to work like FBT (Wyrmwave auto, Flare Star ST into Megaflare AOE)
- traits that skin AF abilities into primal-themed animations with higher potencies
- A job gauge filled by AF abilities/egi assaults for 1 or 2 one-and-done summons
- Ruin V replacing Ruin III
- egis (Ifrit/Garuda/Titan) being changed to a rotating cycle like BRD songs (IDK about passive effects)
- better response time for the AI I hope
- Demi Alexander capstone w/ Holy Judgement big hit (Divine Spear ST into Mega Holy AOE)

I'm hoping for a merger of DWT and Bahamut, along with a removal of the egi's entirely, they can be made into maybe mini trances you use at lower level so that Summoner at level 30 feels similar to one at level 80, but overall they've never truly made the egi's satisfying in this game. The job is definitely one of the more complex ones in the game and in some ways that's a good thing, not every job should be like Dancer, Samurai or Red Mage, some should have a more complex rotation, but this isn't a good complexity, it's just a mess (in fairness to the dev team though, it's miles better then what it was on launch). To change it up I'd like to then see them move over to finding more things to do with aether flow and the Demi's, introducing more oGCD attacks through aetherflow to take advantage of having instants throughout Bahamut phase, and find another option to proc Ruin 4 off of with the loss of Egi's.

Obviously their will be some new 'big thing' the job gets, be it another Demi summon, or some combination of the two, or some new attack within the trances, whatever it is I hope they keep within the current windows, as while Stormblood Summoner is my favorite iteration of the job, that massively long cycle could cause some serious issues. My hope is that removing egi's and merging DWT into Bahamut allows for space in the rotation to open up for the new thing that the job will get.

My biggest concern and hope they address is mechanic synergy, as currently right now Summoner has the most disjointed DPS kit in the game, with multiple mechanics that do not work together much or at all. The job lost that in the transition from 4.0 to 5.0. You had dots that fueled the power of your oGCD attacks, the use of your oGCD attacks unlocked the power of your trances and summons, your summons come out, and you use more oGCD's to do more damage within the summon windows. The only thing that wasn't really connected to the kit was the egi's themselves, as they only needed to be on the battle field doing their thing to allow you to summon your Demi's and get the occasional ruin 4, which is a pretty passive synergy instead of active synergy. Now you still have the need of egi's to generate ruin 4's and summon your Demi's, but outside of that very little in summoner builds off each other. Dot's still make your festers more powerful but that's the only purpose that they exist along with aetherflow, to just do fester. The Trances and the summons all exist completely on their own. It just feels very disjointed compared to what summoner used to be, and especially compared to the other casters, who's entire kits very much work in harmonious unison. So I really hope that is addressed next expansion.

Oh also, could we please make it so Bahamut and Pheonix stop having to follow us around? Like... Please?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rika007

My biggest concern and hope they address is mechanic synergy, as currently right now Summoner has the most disjointed DPS kit in the game, etc.

---

I've noticed that at least Phoenix will stop following to attack when you input a command, something Bahamut still doesn't do :/

Totally agree about kit synergy, too. I know XIV SMN doesn't have to adhere strictly to everything that defines SMN in past iterations through FF, but if we're going to be the DoT mage, they need to integrate into the kit better than just "this one skill will refresh when you trance, and this other one skill hits harder when DoTs are ticking, but your entire skillset otherwise is totally unrelated". It wouldn't shock me to have SMN reworked to move DoTs over to a new job entirely in favor of something else, but that's honestly a pipe dream that feels very unlikely, so I'm not resting on it lol.

One of the things I'd love to see in a SMN rework is Aetherflow being changed to a job gauge that fills from 0 to 100 like SAM's kenki. Using AF gives a fixed amount, ticking DoTs fill it very minimally as they tick and the gauge can be expended for one-and-done oGCD summons that can replace Enkindle. Ifrit's Inferno could easily be changed to work like Higanbana as a long duration DoT since it's already a Dot. Garuda's Aerial Blast could still be the AoE option, while Titan's Mountain Buster (is that even the right one? I've never once summoned Titan lol) is the single-target equivalent. It would open the floor to one-off attacks by Ramuh, Leviathan and Shiva, too, while letting us keep elder primals or more prominent summoned figures for demi-trances (DWT w/ Bahamut, FBT w/ Phoenix, and I would assume some kind of holy trance w/ maybe Alexander?).

Of course, I'm not sure about how to make this work mechanically, because I don't think SMN should be reaching BLM levels of output, but should still be stronger than RDM. I still want to see egis go in favor of one-and-dones, but I also like the way egi assaults work right now minus the occasional ghosting. So much to think about!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaerisKlyne

Totally agree about kit synergy, too. I know XIV SMN doesn't have to adhere strictly to everything that defines SMN in past iterations through FF, but if we're going to be the DoT mage, they need to integrate into the kit better than just "this one skill will refresh when you trance, and this other one skill hits harder when DoTs are ticking, but your entire skillset otherwise is totally unrelated". It wouldn't shock me to have SMN reworked to move DoTs over to a new job entirely in favor of something else, but that's honestly a pipe dream that feels very unlikely, so I'm not resting on it lol.

---

It's not even a DoT mage anymore. Over the years the DoTs have little involvement with everything else that I wouldn't be too surprised if they removed it entirely in the next expansion. Bard has more mechanics going around with their DoTs than Summoner does.

Summoner is a mess. It’s DPS kit is all over the place and the egis are terrible. I’m tired of the pet ghosting and abilities queuing that the pets may or may it execute. What I want in 6.0 is for pets to go away and give us a Demi trance rotation. DoTs to go away too. Just seems so out of place on summoner. I’m truly hoping for a mini rework of the job. I really want summoner to be an actual summoner. Not a dot mage or 2nd hand wow warlock. It’s fine to summon. There are so many primals in the game now that summoner can summon. Not sure why they sticking us with these egi pets. It’s time to go.

Question: what do you think theyll do with summoner
Almost everyones answer : What they want them to do with summoner

Theyll rework it again in order to fit another demi , assuming they still go with the 3 rule. Hopefully they understand that current demi system is stupid and its just stupid ,cause with current logic adding demis just makes rotation timer +1min. The egi gameplay will propably get some tweaks , not rework just tweaks cause it seems the ruin 4 resource management is made to stay. Energy drain will either get removed or reversed , hopefully if they remove it theyll replace it with something.
Worst case scenario the job will be oversimplified but it will never be remade from scratch. Like it or not the job is involved with alot of plot and giving good justification and explanation to its design , it cant be reworked and removed without leaving a massive plothole and alienating alot of peeps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SweetPete

Summoner is a mess. It’s DPS kit is all over the place and the egis are terrible. I’m tired of the pet ghosting and abilities queuing that the pets may or may it execute. What I want in 6.0 is for pets to go away and give us a Demi trance rotation. DoTs to go away too. Just seems so out of place on summoner. I’m truly hoping for a mini rework of the job. I really want summoner to be an actual summoner. Not a dot mage or 2nd hand wow warlock. It’s fine to summon. There are so many primals in the game now that summoner can summon. Not sure why they sticking us with these egi pets. It’s time to go.

---

I agree on everything really, the pet ghosting is so infuriating and it makes the job an annoyance to play. Just nuke the Egi’s I say.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HeulGDarian

Question: what do you think theyll do with summoner
Almost everyones answer : What they want them to do with summoner

Theyll rework it again in order to fit another demi , assuming they still go with the 3 rule. Hopefully they understand that current demi system is stupid and its just stupid ,cause with current logic adding demis just makes rotation timer +1min. The egi gameplay will propably get some tweaks , not rework just tweaks cause it seems the ruin 4 resource management is made to stay. Energy drain will either get removed or reversed , hopefully if they remove it theyll replace it with something.
Worst case scenario the job will be oversimplified but it will never be remade from scratch. Like it or not the job is involved with alot of plot and giving good justification and explanation to its design , it cant be reworked and removed without leaving a massive plothole and alienating alot of peeps.

---

What plot exactly outside of the job quests? Despite being Allagan in origin, almost everything we know about SMN is self-contained in the job quests for it. Those are the only things that would need hefty rewrites and even then it would only be the single point about aetheric limitations capping us at 3 egi. The demis have no rule of 3 because the trance system is a way for us to circumvent our own limited aether re: the egi dilemma.

Just like AST cards, SMN could easily see a total overhaul. Similarly, they could move the Ruin IV proc to nearly anything else depending on what they do. It existing has no bearing on what happens with egi moving forward. Everyone's speculations on the future of the job are valid.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaerisKlyne

What plot exactly outside of the job quests? Despite being Allagan in origin, almost everything we know about SMN is self-contained in the job quests for it. Those are the only things that would need hefty rewrites and even then it would only be the single point about aetheric limitations capping us at 3 egi. The demis have no rule of 3 because the trance system is a way for us to circumvent our own limited aether re: the egi dilemma.

Just like AST cards, SMN could easily see a total overhaul. Similarly, they could move the Ruin IV proc to nearly anything else depending on what they do. It existing has no bearing on what happens with egi moving forward. Everyone's speculations on the future of the job are valid.

---

Hmmm im pretty sure you wont care if i tell you cause if you did youd already know. But lets try to do the impossible.
Summoning isnt any different than what an arcanist does when he summons his carbuncles.
This doesnt just include egis and Demis, this includes every single summoned primal in the entire game. In heavensward it is hammered that none of those summons are alive or dead that returned back to life all of them are just constructs that use aether , they take the form of the beliefs or to put it better the idea that birthed them, in the carbuncles its a gem, in the egis its the pure essense of a primal , in the demis its using Trance to transform your aether into the aether you attuned to.
During Stormblood were emet and zenos is introduced not only do you learn that it is possible to merge with a primal but you also learn that emet was behind the allagan empire . We also learn what happens if an arcanist isnt focused and in control of his emotions when tataru picked up the arcanist, the summon will run away.
fast forward to Shadowbringers and you learn about the sundering and how little aether exists per world due to to it, this immediately solves another mystery as to why bigger primals are harmfull to the world .later on we learn about the world before the sundering and about creation magic which is what emet is using on his fight as well as with what he created the entire city, inside the fight every ancient is using ruin meaning that there is a connection between creation magic and arcanima an assumption we could have made prior when we noticed lahabrea using shadowflare .
Not only that during the prior dungeon that showed the end of days according to emets memories we can see the extreme of what could happen if an arcanist isnt in control, they can summon their deepest fears without wanting to.
After the 5.0 patch the devs posted some stories , one of those stories explains that what miasma does is block the aether from someones body using our own which causes their lungs to collapse, while another is About emet .
In emets story we learn once again that what they create is constructs, and not only that they can create everything they want except a soul, we also learn that a soul can accidentaly possess our construct though this aint helpfull.
The assumptions of if arcanima is creation magic or not are ending in 5.3 where elidibus gets asked by yshtola if indeed creation magic is what we now know as summoning to which he replies her assumptions are correct.
Which also means that as long as someone has aether an arcanist can summon just by thinking.

Here you go. also since you mentioned AST cards not a single astro liked that changed , but they dont continue to complain forever they just went ahead and adjusted. i suggest you do the same. When you want to see black you will see black , the truth however is that they wont delete ruin , they wont delete dots and egis will at most be reworked.



Edit.
Almost forgot.
In shadowbrongers we also learn how hydaleyn and zodiark are also primals as well as why they can selfsustain themselves , which is cause they have aether that amounts to more than half the population of the unsundered world. We also learn that echo isnt hydaleyns gift but our own fragmented power that to be triggered we need to remember the old world, the reason it got attributed to hydaleyn was cause the first thing you hear is her calling.
Also the idea part of summoning is explored even more in the eden raids with how our own forgetfullness plus our own prespective creates something vastly different than what the original idea was, like ramuh mixing with ixion and leviathan having 2 heads.


Edit 2
hythlodaeus also remind us that he isnt actually alive and that the only reason he seems more sentient is cause emets mind slipped up and he thought if anyone could be self aware enough of his situation he could.


Edit 3
another thing that i forgot is that since Arcanima is also tied to scholar we can learn from there as well, since both summoner and scholar are just specializations. From there we can learn how Bio work thanks to the latest upgrade , Bio works by using your aether to destroy your opponent at a cellular level , or to put it simpler to perform biolysis. Another thing that needs to be said is that in ff14 there is no such thing as poison magic even malboros bad breath an old poison attack is in fact water and earth attributed. Also japanese tooltips can also give pieces of information , like for example fester in the japanese tooltip translates to miasma explosion if i remember correctly.



Last words id like to stress how overpowered the job actually is , a summoner , this summoner could literally if he had enough aether summon not just a demi of a primal, he could literally cast any spell imaginable or if he was bored he could summon an 8man to fight for him.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HeulGDarian

snip

---

Absolutely 0% of this impacts the mechanical playability and lore specific to the Summoner job, and I will kindly ask you not to disrespectfully assume that I don't know what I'm talking about after playing the job since its inception, watching every cutscene, reading all the lore, and frequenting the forums. You're conflating the lore around primals with the lore specific to how the job functions, and that's not what's being discussed. And...the ASTs do continue to be vocal about their dislike for the card changes, actually. Like, a lot. Like, everywhere. Like, every chance someone who dislikes the change gets to talk about it, they do.

I remember why I lurk more than interact on these forums now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaerisKlyne

Absolutely 0% of this impacts the mechanical playability and lore specific to the Summoner job, and I will kindly ask you not to disrespectfully assume that I don't know what I'm talking about after playing the job since its inception, watching every cutscene, reading all the lore, and frequenting the forums. You're conflating the lore around primals with the lore specific to how the job functions, and that's not what's being discussed. And...the ASTs do continue to be vocal about their dislike for the card changes, actually. Like, a lot. Like, everywhere. Like, every chance someone who dislikes the change gets to talk about it, they do.

I remember why I lurk more than interact on these forums now.

---

Ofc you do.

1. Emerald (magic ranged), Topaz (support), Ruby (physical melee) carbuncle reworked into magicite that you attune Primal's of your choosing. Egi animations is purely glamour and skill set is tied to the magicite. Ex. Attune Ramuh to Emerald magicite for magic dmg or Topaz for support will be the same as Carbuncle attuned to the same magicite.

2. Carbuncle is your starting summon but can be attuned to different magicite or removed entirely for other pirmal egis.

3. Dreadwyrm Trance reworked into Primal Trance. Exact same as Dreadwyrm Trance but summons a larger version of the currently summoned egi. Ex. Shiva-egi attuned to Ruby magicite will become Shiva when in Primal Trance and uses Diamond Dust when you enkindle. Trance ends upon use.

4. Judgment Trance summons Alexander. Recast timer shared with Bahamut, similar to Dreadwyrm trance and Phoenix. Auto attacks deal aoe instead of single target. Trance rotation at lvl 90 will be Primal > Bahamut > Phoenix > Alexander > repeat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaerisKlyne

?.

---

if you think about it what he said does makes sense. you my friend do not like it cause he showed you up

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jukebox12

if you think about it what he said does makes sense. you my friend do not like it cause he showed you up

---

What he said made sense for the lore that surrounds summoning primals. That lore is independent of the lore from the summoner job quests that dictate the mechanics of egis and trances. They literally aren't even the same topic. Nobody got shown up, but go off if you need to feel good sis, I'm out lol.

My personal take:

Keep Egis (seriously, why get rid of them, their a major appeal of the class and I love being able to have it follow me around everywhere).

Rather, get rid of energy drain and instead give Fester/Painflare charges. Maybe they share, maybe not as a replacement for ED.

As to the dots, make them more integral to the kit. Hell, give us back more of them. We could separate bio 1 and 2 once more or give us a third dot like toxify or scourge. Additionally You now have a summon gauge. Each server tick where a dot is active on an enemy increases this gauge (faster with all 2/3 dots active) and when it's high enough you can use it to summon demi primals.

If their going to give us another demi summon (probably alexander?) then do away with the phase concept and instead let us choose between summons that have different effects depending on what's necessary at the time. Dreadwyrm with Bahamut gives you instant casts. Firebird with Phoenix gives the party regen effect (really, it's perfect as it is) and Creator trance with Alexander gives maybe partywide mitigation? Enemy debuff?

Basically, Summoner combines some of my favorite things in games, minions and DoTs, build on that instead of ditching it all.

I cannot even begin to guess. SMN is constantly changing from each expansion. Only thing I can see being changed is DWT and bahamut being merged into together like FBT and Phoenix.

I would like my dots back though. Managing two is boring especially with tri disaster doing most of the work. I would like aero and thunder, bio, and miasma 2 back
All I hope for is the job is still fun

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Marxam

1. Emerald (magic ranged), Topaz (support), Ruby (physical melee) carbuncle reworked into magicite that you attune Primal's of your choosing. Egi animations is purely glamour and skill set is tied to the magicite. Ex. Attune Ramuh to Emerald magicite for magic dmg or Topaz for support will be the same as Carbuncle attuned to the same magicite.

2. Carbuncle is your starting summon but can be attuned to different magicite or removed entirely for other pirmal egis.

3. Dreadwyrm Trance reworked into Primal Trance. Exact same as Dreadwyrm Trance but summons a larger version of the currently summoned egi. Ex. Shiva-egi attuned to Ruby magicite will become Shiva when in Primal Trance and uses Diamond Dust when you enkindle. Trance ends upon use.

4. Judgment Trance summons Alexander. Recast timer shared with Bahamut, similar to Dreadwyrm trance and Phoenix. Auto attacks deal aoe instead of single target. Trance rotation at lvl 90 will be Primal > Bahamut > Phoenix > Alexander > repeat.

---

This is so close to how I imagine SMN playing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaerisKlyne

What he said made sense for the lore that surrounds summoning primals. That lore is independent of the lore from the summoner job quests that dictate the mechanics of egis and trances. They literally aren't even the same topic. Nobody got shown up, but go off if you need to feel good sis, I'm out lol.

---

To add to this they still haven't even explained how Demi summoning works, outside of a useless throwaway line from Prim about teaching you the ultimate technique. Which could have been literally anything. They haven't cared to explain anything so it's trivially easy to just rework anything and throw it under the umbrella of what Prim taught you.

I’m expecting either DWT and Bahamut being merged together or Egi Assaults being upgraded during a new Primal Trance window, ideally both.

What I’m hoping for is a rework of the levelling curve, replacing Energy Drain/Siphon with Fester/Painflare, and reintroducing Aetherflow and Rouse, which are then used to build the core of the SMN rotation at level 50, upgrading to DWT and Summon Bahamut later on.

Still want the reset mechanic on Tri-Disaster removed too, ideally replaced with the charge mechanic.

Beyond that it’s just number upgrades.