Suggestions/Requests for Summoner Tweaks and Changes Throughout DawnTrail

Hello there! I'm hoping to get my 2 cents in for where I think we can move Summoner towards since it's been made pretty clear that many players new and old do not like where it is rn. I've been playing FFXIV for almost 6 years now and almost always played Summoner, as it was my favorite class to play until DawnTrail.

To start, I think that the level 100 trait should simply upgrade Demi-Bahamut into Solar Bahamut to keep the rotation at 2 minutes long as opposed to the current 4 minute rotation. This would also enable Summoner to have higher party utility through healing as this would push Demi-Phoenix forward to once again be the 2nd of 2 Demi Summons.

To add onto this, I think there should be an addition to the /egiglamour to include changing the way Demi-Bahamut, Demi-Phoenix, and Solar Bahamut appear in case players still wish to see Demi-Bahamut instead of Solar Bahamut, Demi-Phoenix, or vice versa.

Obviously we could stand to include some basic potency buffs, such as increasing Exodus from 1,400 potency to 1,600 potency as well as some buffs to the Gemstone Trio summon attacks (Ruby Ifrit, Topaz Titan, Emerald Garuda), but those changes are easier to achieve.

Last major suggestion is that I believe the Astral Flow abilities to the Trio Summons should be removed from that limitation, and allowed to be executed outside of their summoning window, as well as remove the limit on their execution (with proper potency adjustments). This would allow for Summoners to keep up steadier damage on a target if their party members are choosing to hold dps in order to have a better burst window for later in a fight or dungeon. Such as Savage or Ultimate fights which may need mechanics resolved prior to have an optimal group dps burst, or dungeons with longer-than-average pulls. There are many fights in this game that require Summoners to simply stand around and be forced to press Ruin 3 or Outburst ad nauseum because every other spell is trapped behind the shackles of our damage burst Demi-Summons. I believe this would also help the class identity of Summoner by allowing the freedom of casting Primal spells whenever the situation arises.

Though this would likely mean the removal of Topaz Titan's Astral Flow (Mountain Burst) altogether, I believe it could easily be replaced with a long-cast line AOE spell that many FFXIV players love: Landslide.

And as a very slight change, I believe Lux Solaris should be executed upon expiration as opposed to simply lost altogether. There are many buttons that need to be weaved into the current Summoner burst window, and that spell will more often be ignored in favor of ensuring all of our damaging attacks are pressed instead.

What do you all think? I know my opinion is but one of several million, but hopefully this can reach the right people with enough support and feedback. Summoner was once a very fun class to play and I think it can very easily be so once again! I hope you have a nice day!

Having normal Bahamut upgrade into Solar Bahamut does make a lot of sense. The Demi rotation feels really bizarre now that it goes Solar Bahamut…normal Bahamut…Solar Bahamut Again…Phoenix…Solar Bahamut Returns…lol. I still feel like Solar Bahamut could’ve been its own summon (Alexander maybe since it’s light themed?).

Astral Flow abilities being decoupled with the Egi phase itself I think would make the Egi phases feel pretty weird. It feels like the Astral Flows are kinda made to be used with the Gemshine ones, so they’d be kinda weird if they were useable at all times. Wouldn’t it make the Egi phases even more boring?

That said I do understand the issue. Even in expert dungeons there’s a lot of times where you get to the pull before the boss and suddenly Solar Bahamut comes off cool-down but the pack isn’t quite dead for whatever reason. If you pop Bahamut you lose your burst for the boss; if you don’t pop Bahamut, you lose subsequent access to all three Egis and their abilities and have to stand there looking like a noob spamming Outburst or Ruin III lol.

For Lux Solaris honestly I’d rather see it changed to not need Solar Bahamut summoned to be available. They could just have it learned at the same level but make it a normal cool-down? That way it isn’t just sitting there during burst (though most boss aoes are timed to hit around the 120-mark so it looks like there’s always something to use it on lol). Or maybe once the ‘Lux Solaris Ready’ status is applied lasts indefinitely until used? Then you could at least plan around using it rather than hoping someone gets hit during burst lol.

Some quick additional personal requests:
- I think it’d be cool if we could use Radiant Shield on allies like in PvP
- It’d be nice if Carbuncle did like… anything lol. I get they don’t want any of Summoner’s dps to be contingent on having the pet summoned, but at the same time it feels sad that it just sits there not doing anything the whole fight
- Do something with Physick lol. Make it scale with intelligence, delete it, remake it. Anything lol

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Originally Posted by Tate_solus

And as a very slight change, I believe Lux Solaris should be executed upon expiration as opposed to simply lost altogether. There are many buttons that need to be weaved into the current Summoner burst window, and that spell will more often be ignored in favor of ensuring all of our damaging attacks are pressed instead.

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Lux Solaris has a 30s window in which it can be used so there's plenty of room to fit it. It doesn't necessarily have to be during the burst window.

Maybe a whacky idea, but they could detach Phoenix from the rotation, and give it like a 3 minute cool down. Rez could become instant, and Physick could get buffed when Phoenix is summoned. That way, the rotation would become Bahamut, and Solar Bahaumt (astral, and umbral) with primals in between, and you can have Phoenix in your back pocket at anytime.

The idea I prefer that I’ve seen a few people propose different versions of is essentially this… first and foremost, add in Levi, Shiva & Ramuh, with their own unique spells & animations. Then split all 6 gems into their astral and umbral teams. We have a Solar (Light/Hydaelyn) now, so we’ll probably get a Lunar (Dark/Zodiark) for balance. Then give us a button, similar to BLM’s Transpose or PCT’s Subtractive Palette, that switches between the Astral and Umbral teams, changing the gem summons (and their respective buttons) to their appropriate groups. So you could pick which team you want to start with, depending on what type of mechanics you’ll be dealing with.

So the eventual rotation could look like:
Solar > Umbral Gems > Bahamut
Lunar > Astral Gems > Phoenix
with the option to start in Solar or Lunar.

Since all the big damage is in the 2-minute burst, and the devs seem to be keeping to that, they’d have to make both teams pretty equivalent potency-wise, so that it’s not a DPS loss to choose the “other” team, just better to choose one team over the other due to mechanics. But keeping the gems as triads (even if they would need to be rearranged slightly to fit their teams), leaves it open for more triads/demis to be added in the future without a ton of extra buttons. Either way, it seems like a fairly long rotation, but at least it offers a lot more variety to it than what we have now with:
Solar > 3 Gems > Bahamut > Same 3 Gems > Solar > SAME 3 GEMS > Phoenix > SAME 3 GEMS!!!

Honestly, they could just add Levi, Shiva and Ramuh, without any fancy astral/umbral rotation and I’d be perfectly content at this point. I like the rhythm of new SMN and it flows well. I just want all my elements!

Other wish list items:
- scale SMN Physick to INT
- allow Lux to expire when the next Demi phase begins; it’s almost never needed when it’s actually available
- some other filler spell to alternate with Ruin/Outburst for those times when you don’t want to summon your next Demi yet
- Carby colors to match the new gem summons

Eh, I don't think an Astro-style cycle would be fun.

I'd rather have a semi-random selection of minor summons, either randomly drawn per button (with 2 options at first, add more with more expansions) or as a whole team.

[QUOTE=Khryseis_Astra;6604400]The idea I prefer that I’ve seen a few people propose different versions of is essentially this… first and foremost, add in Levi, Shiva & Ramuh, with their own unique spells & animations. Then split all 6 gems into their astral and umbral teams. We have a Solar (Light/Hydaelyn) now, so we’ll probably get a Lunar (Dark/Zodiark) for balance. Then give us a button, similar to BLM’s Transpose or PCT’s Subtractive Palette, that switches between the Astral and Umbral teams, changing the gem summons (and their respective buttons) to their appropriate groups. So you could pick which team you want to start with, depending on what type of mechanics you’ll be dealing with.

I think that adding Levi, Shiva, and Ramuh could either make or break current Summoner (mostly because I imagine there would be some dev stress on making their spells unique from the others). As far as things I could see the dev team doing, I could see them upgrading Titan, Ifrit, and Garuda into their Eden variants (since those forms were what we as the WoL personally summoned them as). But I could also definitely see them adding in Lunar Phoenix as a Zodiark counter to the Hydaelyn-coded Solar Bahamut. That being said, I too would love to get the rest of the ARR Primals available to us.

Personally, I never liked the idea of tying "gemstone summons" to specific trances.
I'd much prefer being able to select the ones I liked from the get-go (through a dedicated UI), similar to how blue mage does it through its spellbook (even changing the elements of their respective rite/calamity spells, as needed).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tate_solus

And as a very slight change, I believe Lux Solaris should be executed upon expiration as opposed to simply lost altogether. There are many buttons that need to be weaved into the current Summoner burst window, and that spell will more often be ignored in favor of ensuring all of our damaging attacks are pressed instead.

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Originally Posted by Aco505

Lux Solaris has a 30s window in which it can be used so there's plenty of room to fit it. It doesn't necessarily have to be during the burst window.

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Why not simply make Refulgent Lux a 2min. buff (or better yet: until the next Solar Bahamut phase) instead?
It's not as if extending it would break the game's balance or anything, since it's a single use only action.

Anyways, here are my suggestions on "improving" summoner:

• Allowing us to choose which Demi to use in between each Solar Bahamut phase (Solar -> Bahamut/Phoenix -> Solar -> etc.)
• Adjusting Demi-Phoenix so it becomes a "support" alternative to Demi-Bahamut (by, say, drastically reducing the cast/recast time of Raise for its duration)
• Adjusting Physick so it scales to INT instead of MND.
• Allowing Radiant Aegis to be used on other targets as well
• Implementing a dedicated UI for changing pet glamours (instead of relying on text commands)
• Finally implementing the pet glamours of post-2.0 primals (such as Leviathan-Egi/Sapphire Leviathan), even if they worked similarly to our current ones

EDIT:
After giving it some thought, I came up with some further adjustments to its current actions/traits.

• Astral Flow should be learned at Lv.86, so it works exclusively with the "gemstone summons" favors
• Deathflare should no longer be tied to Astral Flow, and instead it should become its own action (learned at Lv.60), later upgrading into Enkindle Bahamut through a trait (learned at Lv.70)
• Rekindle should no longer be tied to Astral Flow (nor should it gradually restore a target's HP), and instead it should temporarily replace Raise, reducing its recast timer to 1s for Firebird Trance's duration
• Sunflare should be removed altogether, with Exodus' potency being adjusted to compensate

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Originally Posted by Exodus-E

Personally, I never liked the idea of tying "gemstone summons" to specific trances.
I'd much prefer being able to select the ones I liked from the get-go (through a dedicated UI), similar to how blue mage does it through its spellbook (even changing the elements of their respective rite/calamity spells, as needed).

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Depends on where they plan on going with job design… now that we’re level 100, would custom job kits be a thing they’d be open to? The only issue is that we’ve only been given 3 gems so far. Unless they give us groups of 3 every expansion, there’s not going to be much mix and match customization available to start with. But after finally being able to start 16 on PC, and seeing what the skill selection is like there, I do kinda like the idea and it definitely seems possible. And I think it could still be done in a way that keeps the rotational flow of new SMN too: Demi, chosen 3 gems, Demi, hopefully 2nd set made up of 3 other gems, etc. I’d definitely like the ability to have 6 gems active though, whether it’s custom chosen or elemental based teams.

Spoilers for 16 for anyone who hasn’t played yet…

I’m not to the end yet; just had my first fight with Odin last night. But having had Ramuh for awhile and just getting Shiva, it only intensifies my desire for Levi, Shiva and Ramuh to be added! Although Levi is oddly absent (maybe in the Tide DLC?), being able to deal out Judgement Bolt and Diamond Dust is just amazing and I want my 14 SMN to have that! (Not to mention, the multiple levels of Megaflare would be nice for custom LBs.) They could just reuse some of 16’s animations. Not like they’d have to create it all from scratch!

Also seeing how they used Odin for their Dark element, maybe some will get their wish for him to be added when they give us a Dark counterpart to Solar Bahamut, which I definitely think will happen, even if I think they really should add other gems first!

Okay so if I had to take a swing at things, I'd do this:

* First of all, the job will be based on getting a random summon assigned, and then having to make the best of the situation.
* To that end, the minor summons will be split into three categories. Yellow is the high-damage one. It has very little other than damage. Red is the mobility one. And finally Green is the utility summon. As we have to use all three, total damage over a cycle of all 3 minor summons can be planned for by the devs and then balanced against other jobs.
* Only Red will offer reliable mobility. More casting compared to now. This comes as a balance for hte increase in party and personal utility.
* Major summons likewise come semi-randomized. One major summon (every 2 minutes) will be raw damage, and the specific one is ultimately purely visual. The total damage will be the same and the mechanics largely identical.
* The other one is the healing summon. It deals less damage (but still a lot!) but gives the ability to cause lasting healing effects for the next 30-60 seconds.

For starters, add 1 new minor summon each, different in specific mechanics to the current one, but in their general use and type similar (see categorization above). As expansions come out, new majors and minors can be added. Each "draw" deals a random summon for each "slot" and we have to make due with it, but overall its roughly the same damage, we just have to react to mechanical requirements and mobility and utility options.

Plus, importantly, we'd be bringing out a whole slew of different summons! :o

My idea would be this:

- At base value you summon the different coloured Carbuncles, these aspect your Ruin. No more timers, Ruby is your long cast strong damage, Emerald is your instant cast mobile and Topaz is your AoE. You can switch between these at will and they use their on summon ability as a bonus for summoning them and of course eventually you can glamour them into Egi.
- Aether flow becomes something that generates over time, energy drain becoming a means of forcing it.
- Eventually you get aether charge when you become a summoner, which brings in the normal mechanic of summoning Egi as you unlock them and getting their special spells.
- Once you get Bahamut/Phoenix, aether charge goes away as before and eventually your Egi go away to become the full sized primal Eikons - perhaps this should be a thing a bit earlier.
- Things change up when you get aether empowerment, where you can use aether flow to empower your summons so Bahamut becomes Solar Bahamut, Phoenix becomes something like Lunar Phoenix.
- Further aether empowerments could let you summon other Primals like Ramuh and Leviathan as the aether empowered versions of Ifrit, Garuda and Titan.

With these changes I wanted to make summoning as Summoner feel a bit more involved and tactical, a job that's easy to pick up but interesting to master. You can still have one Carbuncle out, empower Primals willy nilly and still do something decent, it's still the job that's not going to punish you on the level a kob like Black Mage does, yet there's room for optimisations. Which Carbuncle/Egi are you using for their unique Ruin? Which Primal are you empowering? Is it worth empowering Bahamut into Solar Bahamut for your burst or do you want to save it for another primal for an overall gain in DPS? I also wanted to try to link up the aether flow mechanic with the rest of the kit, as it always felt odd to me how disjointed the job is due to having two mechanics that run entirely separately from each other when most other jobs have all mechanics flow with each other. This makes it so you can use aether flow a bit more often and more tactically at higher levels, while also having an 'oops I screwed up and spent all my flow charges right before aether empowerment came off cooldown' button in good old energy drain.

Bonus, up to five extra Primals if you include Solar Bahamut!

What I would change, If I could choose

- Every summon become OGCD, every summon would trigger ruin 4 instant cast

- bring back tri disaster and two dots

- Remove all basic gem attacks and bring back 2,5sec ruin 3 cast as basic filler. Just keep special gem attacks, but change all of them to become ogcd. Garuda have one strong aoe dot, titan have one strong initial attack, ifrit gap closer

- Second set of gem attacks could be different than first set, bring us ramuh, shiva leviathan or something else.

- Bring back Aetherflow like how it was during during Stormblood, but if you use it outside of combat, it would automatically reset cooldown.