A Summoner's woes

Hi everyone out there and especially to my fellow SMN mains and by extension SCH mains. I hope all of you are doing well.

I'm sure we all have seen the Mr. Happy interview that talked about how egi glamours are being "reassessed and delayed" due to SMN reaching a breaking point in design.
We can pretty much assume a SMN rework is coming next expansion. Whether that be the gutting of egis all together or a change in design for the SMN kit is anyone's guess. But either way it's worrying...

The SE team, while usually does a great job in producing content for FFXIV, really dropped the ball in designing and balancing jobs for this expansion. For example, DNC/MCH/NIN either came out or received some form of a rework this expansion. While the jobs do play well and work properly, I wouldn't say they are really fun to play consistently.
They are very one dimensional imo. NIN is really only fun when during your burst window and MCH is a snooze fest at best.
Almost forgot about the travesty of BRD this expansion.

Well what I'm getting at is I'm honestly afraid that they will take away everything that makes SMN unique and fun to play. I didn't like the Storm blood expansion really but I will say they nailed what SMN should be in that expansion. Everything in the kit meshed so well and you had so much variety in your rotation. Now nothing really plays off each other. Aetherflow feels like a relic of better times, DoTs l/TD are literally just there and feel tacked on because SMN used to be the DoTs job.
While I don't care about it, but what if they did get rid of SMN pets. That would get rid of carbuncles by extension and I know a lot of people are attach to it.

I don't know I'm just rambling, but let me end with this. I was an ACN the moment you could pick the class. I was even probably one of the first SMNs on my server. All I ask SE is just don't destroy SMN and make some generic and stale job like you have been doing this expansion. That's all I ask.

I wrote a lot more than I thought I did. Sorry

I get what you’re saying but I have to disagree. Summoner has always had pet issues. Stormblood was not a good iteration of summoner either. The job doesn’t flow well now and it didn’t flow well in SB. My opinion. Now it does hit like a truck but to say the job was at its best in SB is a bit exaggerated. Can’t even use pets in pvp. I mean the job is just a mess. It needs to be reworked. I’m fine with the pets staying as long as they update the code so no more ghosting and such. Or I’m good without the perma pets and actually make summoner feel like the actual fantasy of a summoner job.

The job has been needing a rework for years now. Glad it’s finally happening. I guess we will know in End walker if SE will be praised or booed for this rework.

Just my opinion.

It needs a rework, but it would be sad to see sparklebutt bite the dust. Let's hope he stays, removing him would remove a 7 year companion for me.

I am personally fine with just carbuncle, no variants...but lots of color choices.

Classically the summons need not “stay out” but just be glorified spell animations.

Were it up to me it would be:
Just carbuncle as permanent summon.
All current spells become summon spell animations (ruin = ifrit punching someone?)
Bigger summons possible via job gauge, these last x seconds like mechanist pet.
Some of your spells being cast (eg ruin) cause summon to also do some action (eg bahamut punch)
Your bigger aetherflow abilities trigger bigger summon things (eg bahamut does ahk mourn)

Summon just does what it does based on your rotation, no need to specifically order it to do anything. (Alternative explanation , doing your rotation is itself what orders your summon to act)

I feel like SMN was a job built to be so feature complete at level 50 that the devs had too few options to grow the job. Between being the pet DPS, a DoT mage, the aetherflow system, and keeping the pets themselves balanced, and the SCH sharing skills, it was a ton of half baked systems and ideas slapped into one. I truly believe the choice to build off of Aetherflow for the Dreadwyrm Trance mechanic instead of going harder on the pets themselves was what damaged SMN’s future potential. The Aetherflow system works many times better on Scholar.

Frankly, EVERYTHING on summoner should be about the pet, as right now you barely want to use the standard egis since everything is focussed on the trances. But, I still prefer that to maintaining Enochian, so I do want Summoner back as a fun caster.


One other detail I’ve noted is that while we have a mountain of evidence that the Scholar’s fairies and Arcanist carbuncles have some level of freewill and personality, Egis do not, despite the requirement of exposure to the primal the egi is based upon. I feel like the concept of Egi would be far over summoning actual primals would be easier to swallow if said Egi had some animation and sounds that made them feel more like the mini primals they’re meant to be.

I suspect the "breaking point" is just that SMN's rotation is so bloody long. Slapping another demi summon on the end of that would just make it worse. So in that regard, it does need a rework.

Summoner is definitely a job that didn't have a clear direction after ARR. When it turned from getting more Egis to getting a Trance, it was definitely SE shouting, "Hey, we based the pets on roles instead of flavor! They're done!" And the pets went unaltered for a long time, and it was an awful long time until Garuda's Contagion wasn't seen as the superior choice vs. Ifrit, and Titan was for soloing (or ridiculously hilarious things that they nerfed, like tanking Ramuh :3c).

It really showed again in Stormblood, where the addition of a Demi-Primal was very welcome, but then the fact that it replaced your current pet in its entirety inherently snubbed Titan Egi, which was already snubbed because it was only a microwave Banquet level chicken nuggie.

With SHB they naturally gravitated towards getting the Demi-Primal out more often, and even introduced a new one, with its own unique burst phase that transformed SMN's attacks into ones based off of Phoenix's signature mechanic spells. Very cool, love this direction, but the Egis, again fell to the way side. It's apparent that they don't really know what to do with them. Of course, all of the early SMN quests rely on you going and fighting these Egis after drawing them out of the land, so if they get rid of them it will make those early quests either need a rework OR it'll be even more awkward than Astrologian's rewrites.

With where they've taken the Demi-Primal system, I think it would be cool if they essentially transformed all of the Egis into Demi-Primals, more or less, at least in function. Hit button, bring them out, they attack when you execute globals, and your Ruins change aspect/shape to become primal based spells. Of course, if it's not separate from the current Demi Trances, then this means an even longer rotation >_>; so... <_<;... I'm sure they're pulling their hair out trying to design it in a pleasing way, but we're likely going to get something that is bad in some ways, good in others, yet again. Lol.

I feel the big problem is that ARR SMN was not the SMN people expected. What they did design, however, was still a great job, it was a DoT mage with pets and I feel like there was a place for it. Though in a way, I felt DoT mage was more appropriate for SCH because it was a big DoT damage dealer in FFXI and it'd have been a FFXIV evolution on that, and then add all of the plague elements that would probably suit some of SCH's plague doctor cues, like in the SCH storyline and the fact it used to have a spell called 'Leeches'. But it seems in their trying to differentiate the two, they cut off SCH's DoT mage aspect completely (and whilst crunching down on healer DPS) and let SMN keep it.

But when people think of SMN they don't think of DoT mage, they think of big summons, and it looks like they wanted to merge two together and it feels like a mess without direction.

So in the end we have a SCH stripped of flavour and identity and a SMN that is confused about its identity. But I am generally of the view, unless it's broken, when you create a job with a certain design philosophy you stick to that philosophy, because the people who make it their main end up loving it for that approach and tend to have the expectations of a consistent evolution and growth because it's the job they like. With how they're approached it, we now have people who prefer different versions of different jobs with people who want their preferred version accommodated for. EG. I'm like "bring back an evolution of 2.0 SCH", somebody else might be like, "eww no, I liked ShB SCH, don't change it".

You're gonna get that with SMN too, the people who liked a DoT mage with pets are going to dislike SMN if it gets reworked to only be demis, as an example. And if they push more towards it being a DoT mage & emphasizing its egi side, those who love the demi system will dislike it. At the moment it feels like they're on the knife edge of both, but it's a mess.

If you completely got rid of Summons, it wouldn't be a summoner class :P

What I would be more inclined to suggest, if not getting flat out FFXI summon styles... is making us the DoT mage and the animations of casts or combos being of particular summons.

For example, all our DoT spells having an animation next to us or from the book or w.e of Shiva egi casting the DoTs for a second. Or for Painflare having Ifrit cast it. Etc.

Little of a best of both worlds and would allow a lot more design space.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SweetPete

I get what you’re saying but I have to disagree. Summoner has always had pet issues. Stormblood was not a good iteration of summoner either. The job doesn’t flow well now and it didn’t flow well in SB. My opinion. Now it does hit like a truck but to say the job was at its best in SB is a bit exaggerated. Can’t even use pets in pvp. I mean the job is just a mess. It needs to be reworked. I’m fine with the pets staying as long as they update the code so no more ghosting and such. Or I’m good without the perma pets and actually make summoner feel like the actual fantasy of a summoner job.

The job has been needing a rework for years now. Glad it’s finally happening. I guess we will know in End walker if SE will be praised or booed for this rework.

Just my opinion.

---

Oh don't get me wrong. SMN has always been riddled with problem especially with the pet AI and pet damage scaling.
However on the surface level, the job is fun to play but just have headaches. Like ifrit not using devotion and enkindle delaying your opener

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zcrash970

Oh don't get me wrong. SMN has always been riddled with problem especially with the pet AI and pet damage scaling.
However on the surface level, the job is fun to play but just have headaches. Like ifrit not using devotion and enkindle delaying your opener

---

It’s more than that though. Summoner has an identity crisis. The devs don’t know if they wanna make this job a dot mage, a pet class or the fantasy summoner we all love so much. Honestly what we have now is sorta a knockoff warlock from wow. Sad to say. The Demi-primals make it more summoner like but for the most part it’s identity is all over the place. It doesn’t flow well. They need to settle on a concept and focus and stick to it.

It's about time they got rid off the pets, they don't feel like summons so nothing of value is lost. Just either focus on the bigger demi summons like Bahamut and Phoenix or make summoner play like how Yuna plays in Dissidia Duodecim. I'm saying this as a person who loves playing the current summoner, it really just feels like a confused mess of ideas of what it wants to be.

It's one of a few jobs that actually needs a rework, in my opinion. I would hardly call this most recent news worrying. This was probably the best SMN news in years.

Summoner definitely has a lot going on and they dont seem to have a single mechanic they operate around. Most jobs have skills and spells that all serve around a single mechanic for them, like BLM Enochian or RDM melee combo. Summoner has DoTs, pets, trances and Aetherflow. All of these work differently and kind of unwillingly work with each other.

I'd be perfectly fine with permanent pets vanishing and being replaced with Demi-Versions of them. That'd be awesome and more in spirit of what Summoner has been over the course of the Final Fantasy series.

I was excited to hear about the Egi-Glamour system until it ended up being the Carbuncle glamour system as I'm in the minority of vastly disliking Carbuncle as an appearance option. Cute and adorable isn't the aesthetic I want permanently attached to my summoner when I'm invoking the powers of eikons.

I'm honestly hoping they finally separate Scholar and Summoner so each job can focus on itself without being hindered by the other and it's very much felt like that's the direction they've been trying to go for two expansions now. Just ripping the two apart, letting Scholar just be its own job that you unlock at LV30 like anything from Heavensward - with its Faerie companion having its own unique set of abilities and functions for however they want to tackle that and Summoner being the natural progress of the Arcanist and solely focusing on that. I think the job designers would have a much easier time with both without having to tiptoe around each others increasingly lost overlap.

In my humble opinion, the dot mage aspect of Summoner should be tossed before its summons should. Because the moment Summoner loses its summons it needs to be called something else.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kemiko

I'd be perfectly fine with permanent pets vanishing and being replaced with Demi-Versions of them. That'd be awesome and more in spirit of what Summoner has been over the course of the Final Fantasy series.

I was excited to hear about the Egi-Glamour system until it ended up being the Carbuncle glamour system as I'm in the minority of vastly disliking Carbuncle as an appearance option. Cute and adorable isn't the aesthetic I want permanently attached to my summoner when I'm invoking the powers of eikons.

I'm honestly hoping they finally separate Scholar and Summoner so each job can focus on itself without being hindered by the other and it's very much felt like that's the direction they've been trying to go for two expansions now. Just ripping the two apart, letting Scholar just be its own job that you unlock at LV30 like anything from Heavensward - with its Faerie companion having its own unique set of abilities and functions for however they want to tackle that and Summoner being the natural progress of the Arcanist and solely focusing on that. I think the job designers would have a much easier time with both without having to tiptoe around each others increasingly lost overlap.

In my humble opinion, the dot mage aspect of Summoner should be tossed before its summons should. Because the moment Summoner loses its summons it needs to be called something else.

---

No I'm with you. I prefer my egis over Carby.

I'm in the minority but I think it should be the other way. I think ACN should be changed to a healer and have it's early level kit start building up to be a shield healer. That way new players have two options for healers and can experience both types of healers early.
If they get rid of permanent pets from SMN, it would make sense to have carbuncle get promoted into fairies once the player is a SCH. Makes more sense we you factor in Carby is originally a support summon like fairy.

Would remove physick and rez off of SMN which I think is very likely down the line anyways.
Either way, I agree that they need to be torn apart.

I'm in favor of killing off the pets. I'm also in favor of SMN rework.

Honestly, if it doesnt have "all the summons" aka primal fights /diablos/fenrir/guardin force. That we have fought.. I cant consinder it a summoner so i avoid it. As the job looks and reads like a affliction warlock trash from wow

I think the biggest issue they run into is this perceived notion that SMN isn't a true summoner like other games, but I asked my red mage/black mage who never touched summoner in his life brother what he would say 14's summoner identity is, he said the pets.

I am just saying looking at just 14 alone SMN makes sense in context of the job and so do the often complained about Egi's. I just do not see pets being removed and if they are well I leveled everything else to 80, I can find a new main elsewhere I suppose.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by StormyFae

Honestly, if it doesnt have "all the summons" aka primal fights /diablos/fenrir/guardin force. That we have fought.. I cant consinder it a summoner so i avoid it. As the job looks and reads like a affliction warlock trash from wow

---

Hello,

I agree with you 200% when reading some of these responses of other summoners saying they like the permanent pets I mean that’s okay and all but that’s not the true fantasy of summoner. Then others say this game is XIV not XI or any others. First of all summoner in XI I like because there was a penalty to have avatars out like it drained your mana. Kinda reminds me of old bard when you cast foe requiem that it drained your tp. It was nice that there was a penalty to summoning. When they introduced Demi primals that’s when egis should of got the boot. The job makes no sense now. There is no flow. It’s all over the place. Dots, perma horrible pets, Demi summons. It’s a crazy mess. I’m glad summoner is getting reworked. It truly needs it. I think in end walker we will either have perma pets still or Demi summons. We shouldn’t have both.

One of the big issues was FF14 was originally building in 11’s concepts, where classes were very different and could do some very interesting/niche things. Summoner specifically could make use of their summons in very fun ways, often cheesing some of the game. In addition, 11 had actual elemental weaknesses where one summon would give more damage (eg. Shiva vs wind element creatures).

11 very much had certain fights with specific ways to clear them...something like “you wanna fight that? You need a Paladin, with this gear and a ninja sub job to mitigate incoming damage while you kite it around the room. Your friends must have ranged or they will get aoe’d.”

With how homogenized all jobs are, there simply isn’t a need for a variety of pets that would do essentially the same thing.

So yeah, it felt like originally summoner was meant to be a sort of multi tool job (like it was in 11, along with redmage and blue mage)...now? Unnecessary.

R.I.P. Titan Egi tanking, the best tank for Ramuh Extreme in the game, when the fight was current. T_T

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SweetPete

I agree with you 200% when reading some of these responses of other summoners saying they like the permanent pets I mean that’s okay and all but that’s not the true fantasy of summoner.

---

If there is a "true fantasy" for summoners it would be to have the each summon be a single cinematic attack and afterwards they disappear, not for them to stick around. Basically only 11 does that. Even among nonFF games it's a lot more common for JRPGs to use attack summons (like Golden Sun) and western RPGs to have you summon mobs l(ike Diablo and Divinity).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ItMe

If there is a "true fantasy" for summoners it would be to have the each summon be a single cinematic attack and afterwards they disappear, not for them to stick around. Basically only 11 does that. Even among nonFF games it's a lot more common for JRPGs to use attack summons (like Golden Sun) and western RPGs to have you summon mobs l(ike Diablo and Divinity).

---

Thats y all other ffs gave you weak cheap smns that you could call up to spare mana if you needed to such as chocobo, or moogle..

In fact terra became the summon which id also find acceptable as it was ff6 smn style so it still works in my eyes.. Ff10/12 they stuck around for a bit then used the ultima move and had a lifebar of their own which made smalot more balance. Ff8 didnt have a smn, however id also find it acceptable to make smn into ff8 system were we go to a temple of our choice and bind our souls to a single smn of our choice, then are moves take on that summons traits. So if choice levithan example all moves is changed to his style and have a long cd of calling my choicen force for a single move

Point is there are so many acceptable options for summon to use from others in the series.. But this affliction warlock bs and non final fantasy style is not acceptable in my eyes.

To be honest it should have been a sub job for either blms start or whm using a book for summoning i just find dumb honestly, plus even though smn use blm,whm spells through out the series..

They hardly ever had access to dots /enfeebling magic they used cures and elemental spells which makes sense in smn theme...

But summon doesnt call upon undead or enfeebling themed summons.. So them using dots /enfeebling is not how summoner works


But honestly Yoshi poorly designed all jobs even blm that he plays is not a black mage its a cooldown low end form..
Hell rdm is more of black mage than black mage and red mage is just suppose to have base to mid lvl of each. Its nit even suppose to get flare/holy as the signatures of blm/whm
It is suppose to have high enfeebling/enchancing abilurys yet it has non..

While ill admit he makes a good game Yoshi is a horrible final fantasy game dev..
Id rather the game be meha and be a real final fantasy than a great game that is an insult to all final fantasys