SMN - Why it is not a very interesting job and not a good upgrade from ACN

[Ventus]

I really hate to be "that guy" but summoner feels like an SE dev was watching tons of warlock videos from World of Warcraft and said "screw it, let's do one of those thingies" instead of making a summoner class mostly about the power of the SUMMON.

[shinros]

I really hate to be "that guy" but summoner feels like an SE dev was watching tons of warlock videos from World of Warcraft and said "screw it, let's do one of those thingies" instead of making a summoner class mostly about the power of the SUMMON.

Funny thing is that is what pains me the most and now I am hoping for a beastmaster class that will actually give us a pet class since I highly doubt square will redesign the summoner like I hoped it to be.

[Samuraiking]

...summoner feels like an SE dev was watching tons of warlock videos from World of Warcraft and said "screw it, let's do one of those thingies" instead of making a summoner class mostly about the power of the SUMMON.

Even though I am not a fan of WoW, it's certainly polished and was a good choice to draw inspiration from. However, mimicking WoW classes instead of keeping with the wonderful iconic theme of the FF universe is sad. They have pretty much ruined SMN. Don't get me wrong, the class functions as a class, what they have ruined is what SMN is at its' core, a summoning class that relies on the raw power of its' summons. The summons are, as OP has stated, quite shit. While FFXI wasn't a paragon of excellence in the SMN department(being a terrible healer with huge nuke bursts, but only every minute), it was still better than what they have done here. I don't have anything against a warlock, but it's not what I wanted to play, a real SMN was.

[shinros]

Even though I am not a fan of WoW, it's certainly polished and was a good choice to draw inspiration from. However, mimicking WoW classes instead of keeping with the wonderful iconic theme of the FF universe is sad. They have pretty much ruined SMN. Don't get me wrong, the class functions as a class, what they have ruined is what SMN is at its' core, a summoning class that relies on the raw power of its' summons. The summons are, as OP has stated, quite shit. While FFXI wasn't a paragon of excellence in the SMN department(being a terrible healer with huge nuke bursts, but only every minute), it was still better than what they have done here. I don't have anything against a warlock, but it's not what I wanted to play, a real SMN was.

Exactly I wanted a summoner someone that commands and deals their main damage through pets.

[Yukagama]

Exactly what I' wanted as a summoner someone that commands and deals their main damage through pets.

BINGO! What was thinking just like how it should be in the FF series and what FFXI did a good job compare to this version in XIV. Very disappointed and waiting for SMN since version 1.0 in this is what they gave me oh well now i have to deal with it.

[Ardan]

FFXI did a good job compare to this version in XIV.

A good job? Summoner was one of the worst classes in FFXI. Outside of summons it had nothing to fall back on. The only thing people wanted summoner for when leveling was their obscenely large MP pool to use for healing parties all the way to 75. After the cap started going up it wasn't that bad, but the avatars were still weak in comparison to other players because of timers. Sure, summoners had some use for certain fights, but most of the time other jobs would be better suited for dealing damage.

Summoner was my main back in FFXI despite the gaping flaws it had. I loved the job purely because it was summoner and it still is in FFXIV. This version is involving, I get to do stuff instead of standing around like an idiot waiting to issue orders to my summon or curing others left and right. Doing damage solely through our pet hasn't worked in FFXI and would work even less now.

[Elizabeth]

Exactly I wanted a summoner someone that commands and deals their main damage through pets.

Exactly.

SMN is fun. My main frustration with this job is when i die, because i lost a significant amount of time to stand up, re-summon, use food, cast Aetherflow then start the rotation again.

[Dixa]

Even though I am not a fan of WoW, it's certainly polished and was a good choice to draw inspiration from. .

it wasn't polished at launch. warlocks were soulstone+imp buff bots because of the debuff limit - a 9 year old mistake square made in 2013. hunters would blow all their mana, dps'ng for about a minute straight, feign death and then drink for 3-4 minutes during c'thun. hybrids weren't actually hybrids, being locked into healing roles exclusively. the disparity between horde and alliance in raiding (blessing of salvation vs. windfury totem) meant that due to threat ceilings alliance had an easier time progressing through content. if there were more than one druid i a 40 man - and this rarely happened - and you weren't the one allowed to cast regrowth and rejuve, then you were a healing touch rank 4 spammer and innervate bot and nothing more.

[Samuraiking]

-snip-

This is completely irrelevant to the topic and even my post. I was simply stating that the CURRENT game of WoW is very polished and that is what they draw inspiration from, not its horrible, horrible launch.

The points we are trying to make is that we want a pet class that focuses on pets. What we got was a warlock, DoT class with shitty(and ugly) pets that don't matter. In some cases actually messes things up(Ifrit stun, which is why everyone uses Garuda). The class functions as a class, no one is arguing that. It can do dps and even has a subpar heal it can toss out in an emergency and they were nice to give it battle rez and a shield. The fact is, the way it goes about dmg is not how we expected or wanted. It goes against everything SMN has always been in the past in FF universes. It doesn't break the game, it breaks our hearts.

[shinros]

This is completely irrelevant to the topic and even my post. I was simply stating that the CURRENT game of WoW is very polished and that is what they draw inspiration from, not its horrible, horrible launch.

The points we are trying to make is that we want a pet class that focuses on pets. What we got was a warlock, DoT class with shitty(and ugly) pets that don't matter. In some cases actually messes things up(Ifrit stun, which is why everyone uses Garuda). The class functions as a class, no one is arguing that. It can do dps and even has a subpar heal it can toss out in an emergency and they were nice to give it battle rez and a shield. The fact is, the way it goes about dmg is not how we expected or wanted. It goes against everything SMN has always been in the past in FF universes. It doesn't break the game, it breaks our hearts.

Yup this is exactly what the topic is about its not about dps or any of that junk its how the class is designed.