FF11 vs FF14: Summoner

Although I never played a summoner in 11, I have watched countless videos and demos of the class, and its considerably different from the summoner we have in 14. Honestly, about the only thing they seem to share is the name. I have to be honest and say that the Summoner from 11 looks so much more fun and worthy than what we have today.

I would love to see them just remove the summoner from arcanist, and give it its own base class, such as an elementalist or something. Just an idea, but the elementalist would summon elementals such as: fire, ice, earth, wind, etc...

Once you unlock the summoner class and defeat the required primal, you could combine its primal essence with the corresponding elemental to summon forth Primal Spirits aka Summons to fight for you in battle.

Leave the arcanist to upgrade into scholar, and make an elementalist upgrade into summoner. This is just my thoughts, I am hoping for a complete rework of the summoner class, what are your thoughts?

I to noticed that the Summoners in 14 are almost 'gimped' compared to the Summoners in 11. But, there is also the fact that in 11, you needed almost 1-million gil worth of food, drink and potions in your inventory, just to have the 'chance' of surviving the 1 on 1 fights with the Summon's before you could call them as 'pets'.

I think the class should also be made a bit 'better' than it is now, but if they do, they will also have to increase the 'difficulty' of the class (how hard it is to get stronger in it) to compensate for the added strength of the class.

I would imagine another tier of jobs down the line, so maybe Summoner becomes Evoker, with bigger better avatars

to anyone complaining about ff14 summoners:

one word: LOLPERPETUATION

i'm very sure they will introduce more direct pet controls and things like bloodpacts in future.

I have always had a soft spot for summoners but unfortunately not in a necessarily positive light. When tanking dungeons, summoners always seem to get in my way more than anything. Partially its because they are using the wrong pet and also because they just don't put out any damage by either burst, sustained or DoT's. Do I ply a summoner? No. So I can't say with any experience about the class. But I have always bee very underwhelmed by them. They always seem to be overshadowed by the other DPS classes. They are not like other pet classes in MMO's from what I have seen.

Example
Please note I am not a WoW fanboy by any means. I played WotLK and a small bit of Cata before I lost interest. I am a MMO drifter usually so I have played many MMO's over the years.

I played a hunter up to level 82 in WoW. Both Beast master and Marksman were viable end game builds. By either buffing my pet to do great damage or Doing high Burst damage as a Marksman, I never felt useless.

Do I think summoners are useless? No. But I do think they could definitely use some love in a future patch.

I don't think Summoner is a bad job, I just think it's harder to play correctly. I see many, many bad ones, because it's popular, and it's hard. You have to know which pet to use at the right time and how to control it. I know playing on Darkhold the summoner would often forget to order the pet to attack the crystal, so it would just fight the unkillable boss, leaving only DoTs and another DPS to take out the crystals.

Anyway, I'm glad it's different from FF11. It should be, because that's how Final Fantasy seems to work. Summoners have some comparions, but are never the same. Sometimes they even have different names, and do different things in battles when summoned sometimes.

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Originally Posted by AlyssaImagine

I don't think Summoner is a bad job, I'm glad it's different from FF11. It should be, because that's how Final Fantasy seems to work. Summoners have some comparions, but are never the same. Sometimes they even have different names, and do different things in battles when summoned sometimes.

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They shouldn't be THAT different. While not clones of their FF11 counterparts, most of the classes that came from FF11 work very similarly.

Keep in mind a summoner should be known for one thing, their summon. How they buff their summon and use its abilities should be what defines them.

To me at least, a summoner should be spending their time making their summon their star. Not slinging spells alongside them. But this is just my opinion. Like.it or not, what we have is what you get for now.

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Originally Posted by Jaminos

They shouldn't be THAT different. While not clones of their FF11 counterparts, most of the classes that came from FF11 work very similarly.

Keep in mind a summoner should be known for one thing, their summon. How they buff their summon and use its abilities should be what defines them.

To me at least, a summoner should be spending their time making their summon their star. Not slinging spells alongside them. But this is just my opinion. Like.it or not, what we have is what you get for now.

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Well, that's true too. It would be much better to see Summoner's doing more with their pet, buffing them and everything. Would be better than a Summoner throwing around DoTs and not much else. I like much of the class, but I agree some of it could be better.

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Originally Posted by Shuon

i'm very sure they will introduce more direct pet controls and things like bloodpacts in future.

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PLEASE NO!!!!! summoner on FFXI is condemned to be a support class because of this. I like the way Summoner is in FFXIV as its more of a DPS class with the option of backup healer.

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Originally Posted by Ageofwar

PLEASE NO!!!!! summoner on FFXI is condemned to be a support class because of this. I like the way Summoner is in FFXIV as its more of a DPS class with the option of backup healer.

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This right here is the truth... XI summoner had potential to be a DPS but no due to the ability of subjob and its massive amount of MP it became a healer class. I Prefer the Summoner in XIV completely over XI.

Well honestly there is a win win option here. A lot of people dislike the new summoner, a few support it fully. Why not just keep Arcanist the way it is, and introduce a new or rather older version of the summoner class. Just give us both!

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Originally Posted by Jaminos

They are not like other pet classes in MMO's from what I have seen.

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If you believe they are using the wrong pet, then you should tell them that. Interacting is key. Consider that it's merely just a matter of balance. No other job can heal, tank, and dps at the same time. Sure summoner can't do all those effectively as a focused job, but I think it's a role they play. It also varies on people's stats too. Some summoners ( maybe most ) go all out INT so they could get as much dps as possible.

Another thing to consider is comparing it to ffxi, it was so much more harder to aquire the summoner class and to maintain it. They basically dumbed it down and made it a more simply class, which I think is a good thing. FFXI, summons slowly took your MP away as long as it was out.

As far as quoting you, well DUH. It's a good thing they didnt. Thank god ffxiv is not no lame generic mmorpg with the same classes and qualities.

I am not claiming that they should follow any other MMO either. Nor am I saying they should copy FFXI.

As for communication, I always communicate while tanking. I have a fairly extensive thread about the common mistakes of tanking that addresses that very subject. But I can only go half way. I can't force them to change their summon. I have yet to have a positive experience with a summoner in my party.

Do I hate them? Absolutely not. Do I think that nobody can play the class correctly? No. But I can only base my opinion on what I have seen for the past 31 levels of doing dungeons. I would be happy to be wrong and see a summoner do great.

I just never notice a difference with them in a dungeon. In fact, I have noticed a great boost in DPS if they had to leave And another DPS class took their place. I don't hate summoners. I just have had no luck with them.

I honestly question why SE decided to name this class "Summoner" when we really aren't. The lore doesn't even match the rest of the Summoners from the FF series, we're not summoning the full fledged/real magical beasts/summons/eidolons/espers/avatars/aeons/etc (primals called in this game), we're calling (wouldn't even call it summon tbh) their gimped forms (aka Essence)- the Egi versions of the "real" beast.

If anything, they should have gone with the "Evoker" name. It is more fitting and not as misleading.

PS; I do understand why SE took the "miniature/half" summon form approach, I wish they didn't. While I like the SMN class as a whole the summons are a major letdown coming from the other title, XI.
The class doesn't feel "epic", with only 3 dwarf pets to that's smaller than a Tarutaru. xD