A little worried, not about servers though, about Summoner!

[Luvbunny]

Let's see - dumb people thinking all about how much damage you can do - instead of giving the player and the SMN class a chance to shine. Not every melee DPS is all about hitting 2 buttons for attack rotation. SMN seems to be one that is a bit complex between managing pet and doing your own DPS rotation spells. And yes people are quick to judge. There are many bad players who play other burst damage and have no clue of what group play means and how each jobs are suppose to perform in dungeon (hate control, mob control with sleep and repose, etc). Once again SMN get the same stigma from FFXI - until an exploit is found

[Gumbercules]

pet control is a bit annoying (took me a while to figure out obey did what i thought guard was supposed to do :P, namely cuz i just do the dungeons once atm) I think its damage is good and fester is a burst spell to rival anything a BLM can toss out as a single burst hit (obviously not constant burst). It is a very unforgiving class though and the pet does have a tendency to switch out of obey or guard at a whim though lol. (if anyone knows how to macro pet commands post it here ^^; ) The sustained dps of the class is impressive though, although again very unforgiving if you let a dot drop etc. and while i do not think it is horrible at aoe, it requires absurdly fine precision to do.

might try to determination stack for it and SCH since it seems it might be a class based around that. Also the ruins seem kinda "pointless" in a long dps rotation imo and i usually just use them when i have nothing else i could do without clipping a 3sec+ dot. (use ruin 2 macro'd to thunder as my alternative before ruin lol since only good thing outta it is the blind :P)

should point out i have yet to try the instance you mentioned though, hope i can at least get a chance to test it out as smn so I can at least get a feel for it ^^; (my reason for lvl ACN besides it not being 50 is for scholar though :P )

[Raskbuck]

That's exactly the point I made with my thread. If you had messed up just ONCE (and left your pet on guard, or hit the wrong target, or hit a lag spike and died to an AoE), those players might have responded with something like, "SEE! I TOLD YOU SUMMONERS WERE BAD!" That's confirmation bias, and it's something summoners have to deal with while others don't. We have to be 'impeccable'. We can't mess up. Not even once. Because if we do, it will 'confirm' the stereotype that 'summoners are bad'.

That's commonly known as the attribution effect, meaning that we tend to assume certain things about our world in order to not over think every little detail about our daily lives.

It's a surprisingly effective method that helps us configure our reality in such a way that everything makes sense. Unfortunately, it also has a strong correlation with the self-fulfilled prophecy that you described so well; meaning that while attributions help us understand the world better, it can also create a certain bias against something.

People will inherently search for those key signals that help them reinforce their beliefs, because otherwise they would have to reconfigure their belief system about the world; and as you are probably aware, many of us have a strong resistance of change.

I'm not really sure why I wrote that up in here, but I thought you'd like to know the technicalities behind it. What's happening now with Summoners is something we have to deal with everyday outside of FFXIV, and unfortunately we are not always aware of it.

[jk315904]

Seeing all this negativity surrounding Summoner kind of makes me regret my last 45 levels. If I would have knew that this was going to be the case when it came to higher level dungeons I would have picked a separate class/job. I can agree with what some are saying with SMN's long cast times and how pet management can be a problem in dungeons. I guess I will get SMN to 50 and pick something different to work on as my main until all this hate blows through.

[Unruhe]

Can anyone think of anything that a summoner does that is needed in a party?

Instant-cast battle rez once per minute comes to mind. Ideally, people in your group shouldn't be dying, and if they are odds are a healer should be able to get them up. IIRC SMN is the only non-healer capable of popping an instant rez.

[Riyo]

The only reason anyone on any job shouldn't be able to complete AK is because they are going in right after they finish the story line with AF armor and low level greens and whites. Also, chances are if you are a fresh 50 in only AF armor and lower greens/white the group looked at the gear in the beginning and knew you wouldn't be able to do the DPS required to kill some of the bosses. There is another level 50 instance there just for gearing up to do Ifrit and AK.

To Dotnet, the numbers you have look right if it isn't calculating the pets damage. There really isn't any reason SE would make one job do 30% less damage than all the less. Either the DPS parser isn't including pet damage or the optimal fighting rotation for the SMN isn't being used.

[Xayoc]

Demon Wall and the follow on Dragon boss in AK are DPS races, especially Demon Wall. As crappy as it is, it is really rough to get a SMN/MNK and to a lesser extent BLM through AK.

[Dotnet]

Riyo,

That's including pet damage. If it's your pet, the DPS is combined into your DPS and shown as one.

For others, you just look at the summoner's DPS and their pet and combine them.

The only thing that would make those numbers inaccurate would be the parser. Which there is always a chance the parser is not calculating correctly.

[Ehllfhire]

Summoner doesn't need to be bursty, we have effects like miasma 2 and the one skill (name escapes me) that speads your dots to all, you can dot adds down fast. Our dps is very steady provided you play it well and mange your pet when necessary.

[Zidanne]

they have already stated summoner will be changed to que as a healer role

I'm surprised nobody answered this. I'm sorry, what? SMN as a healer? Since when? Summoner is a pure bred DD.

You might be mistaken for Arcanist, which can heal fine to 30 and which they are going to allow to queue for healer.


Also, i'm not a summoner nor have i leveled arcanist that far, however in my few levels as arcanist i have seen little to none people using cross class abilities. Aero + Thunder to DPS rotation and Surecast when your pet falls and you are taking dmg. These may be little things, but they are tools you need. On the low level dungs i use Miasma+bio+thunder+aero on all mobs around while tank is fighting his target. These abilities won't take enough hate to shift aggro to you, but it will take a hefty chunk of the adds while your party is busy killing the tank's target. When he's done he just has to finish off the rest of the mobs.