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

[Kevee]

A lot of things.

I have leveled DRG recently, and while I think DRG class is about perfect, and in much better shape, I noticed my SMN does a ton more dmg than my DRG; it's just not as fun to play. The pet AI is terrible. The customization (turning off certain skills) of pet bar is terrible. The obey command sucks. The overall dmg potential needs to be lowered and we need to be given a little more burst. Yes, Fester is great, but I have to apply dots first, so it's not as easy to kill a bee in AK as it would be on DRG. Still, the ramp-up dmg trade-off is nice, it just sucks for burst fights. There are more things, but I am stuck to 1000 character limit.

-Pet AI is not balance(and it's generally fine)
-Customization of pet bar is not balance/Not an intended feature afaik(that's why we can put pet skills on our normal hotbar)
-Obey is working as intended/not related to balance
-More like other classes(specifically DRG, MNK, and especially BLM) need to be buffed up to SMN/BRD levels. We have burst comparable to any other job. 725 potency in the first 3 GCDs.(MNK either just needs a longer timer on GL or a ranged attack to refresh GL timer, their actual DPS is fine)
-It's actually easier because after we apply the DoTs and Fester a bee, we can switch to the other one and still have our DoTs ticking on the first. This isn't balance, though.

-You can bypass the 1000 limit by editing.

[Crevox]

Refer to main post. The balance is off when a pet is never, ever useful.

[Kevee]

Refer to main post. The balance is off when a pet is never, ever useful.

The pet is ~20-30% of your DPS and provides contagion.

It is useful. If you're talking about Ifrit-Egi, it is the best solo-farming pet and provides a niche of an on-demand stun(if for whatever reason no one else in your party has one). Titan-Egi is useful if you're undergeared for a dungeon, or leveling/questing while taking on multiple mobs.

Not to mention a lot of what you post in the OP is wrong.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Rydia

Oh, look.

Bio, Poison, Drain, Osmose, etc.

There is no one "summoner."

They are all vastly different and you just can't accept that. Summoning wasn't the focus for Eiko, Garnet, or Yuna either. They were all better off doing other things, not to mention they functioned completely different. That's just the "summoners," too. Summons functioned differently in XI, XII, and XIII.

No, but when it's different in XIV it's wrong?

Get real.

[Crevox]

it is the best solo-farming pet

No. It's not. There's no reason that makes it so, either. Hence, the main post.

I've got to remember to stop taking people so seriously...

[Kevee]

No. It's not. There's no reason that makes it so, either. Hence, the main post.

I've got to remember to stop taking people so seriously...

Yes, it is.

Things die too fast for contagion to be useful, you don't want garuda pulling things out of your AoE, and the auto attack is stronger than Garuda.

Go farm Apkallus and tell me Ifrit isn't the best for it.

[Karnage720]

Maybe you guys can help me out, instead of me starting a new thread, I see here that Fester does great damage but when I use it, Im only doing a little over 200. Im only 38 so I dont know if that is normal or not. I usually do Bio 2>Miasma>Bio>Fester>Thunder. Am i missing something?

[Kevee]

Maybe you guys can help me out, instead of me starting a new thread, I see here that Fester does great damage but when I use it, Im only doing a little over 200. Im only 38 so I dont know if that is normal or not. I usually do Bio 2>Miasma>Bio>Fester>Thunder. Am i missing something?

Make sure to delay the Fester after Bio until AFTER Bio is present on the mob. If you cast it as soon as possible the Bio debuff won't be up, and Fester won't do full damage.

[Yanktastic]

Glad these forums are so full of debate regarding this class. It would seem that some of you fell into the same 'summoner trap' that I did.

Ive been playing MMO's for a long time and I generally purchase and install the next new flavor of the month title and play it for at least a little while. Being said, my all time favorite job/class was Summoner from FFXI. And that one job and its play style has kept me going back to FFXI every year or so.

Ive parsed top 100 on world of logs as heals, tanking, and dps for WoW. Ive participated in local tournaments for SC2. But the thing that kept me coming back to FFXI Summoner wasn't about some DPS epeen chart. I didnt care that I wasn't top dps. I didn't care that I wasn't top heals. I didn't care that I was never going to get a merit party as a summoner, or that my dynamis leader always gave me crap because I wanted to raid as a summoner. Sure I would play my BLM/RDM/etc when the LS needed it, but you better believe Im jumping at my chance to play summoner first. You know why? Because I loved the class, because I loved the play style, because I payed my sub, and because IDGAF predator claws was awesome. That the emphasis was put on the Avatars and not the summoner was what kept me coming back.

The summons themselves were what was amazing, not the caster.
Imagine my delight when I heard that Summoner was going to be added to this game. 'Awesome' I thought, 'time to let those Avatars, GF's, Aeons, whatever they are in this game do work!!'. So Ive waited a while for SE to get out the launch bugs, and for the launch to iron itself out.

And that's where I fell into the 'trap'. I expected Summoner to be the unique class and play style I loved from FFXI. And if not a carbon copy, at least something similar. I expected my summons to be awesome. And it would seem some of you did too.

It isn't. I find that what I have is a cut and paste Warlock class from World of Warcraft. Don't get me wrong, there is NOTHING WRONG with locks in WoW. Its a fun play style. Dotting someone up in PVP and standing around while they try to save themselves is great. Casting while moving away from boss mechanics in raids? Fun for everyone!

Some of the player base (for example Kevee who is no doubt waiting to reply to this in the same 'LOOK HOW GOOD MY DPS IS, YOU'RE A BAD PLAYER' response she has every other post) doesn't get that for me, that's not what Summoner is about.
I'm sure you parse top 10 world on HM Throne of Thunder Fights, and you no doubt carry your team to perfect victories in LoL Challenger tier. And for you FFXIV Summoner is a well oiled DPS chart topping machine. But for me and it would seem some of the other players, I came in with a base expectation of what the Summoner class was all about and at the downright very least I expected the summons themselves to be interesting.

They aren't. The fact that Summoner is a dot class is irrelevant. The first time I saw Garuda flying behind someone in Limsa Lominsa I couldn't believe it. I actually zoomed in to see if SE just went ahead and stole the character model from the WoW imp as well. I came in with the base expectation that the summoned elementals would be the focus of the class. I thought they would make the same battlefield splash that they do in every other Final Fantasy title. They don't. They aren't even interesting to look at and they aren't the focus of the class like I thought they would be. Yes Kevee, Ive seen your numerous posts. 20-30% of my dps!! That's great. Its so awesome I'm going to go get a kitten and name it kevee. Im thrilled summoner is on top of the DPS chart (finally!!). But for gods sake SE, at least make the class revolve around the summoned entity (lol at the comment Yuna didnt revolve around her summons). Make the summons fun and engaging. A lock clone wasn't what I was looking for, and wasn't what I expected to get.

I will continue to play this (30 dollars is a more than fair for how many hours it will take to reach level cap), but for me at 50 im done. I fell into the trap of expecting something from the class and then seeing my expectations fail to meet the reality of this 'check the block dot class' summoner.
You want to go P2P SE? Fine. My love for the FF series merits at least a look at the game. But if you want my monthly sub you need to go in and take a hard look at what you think a summoner should be, and what this class in FFXIV is.

[Kevee]

snip

It's not just about DPS.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Rydia

Oh, look.

Bio, Poison, Drain, Osmose, etc.

There is no one "summoner."

They are all vastly different and you just can't accept that. Summoning wasn't the focus for Eiko, Garnet, or Yuna either. They were all better off doing other things, not to mention they functioned completely different. That's just the "summoners," too. Summons functioned differently in XI, XII, and XIII.

No, but when it's different in XIV it's wrong?

Get real.

Summons are, and always have been, only strong from a LORE perspective. Mechanically, it's always been better to do other things.

In this game, they just made the lore match the mechanics without completely nullifying the summon itself.

[Inosaska]

Glad these forums are so full of debate regarding this class. It would seem that some of you fell into the same 'summoner trap' that I did.

Ive been playing MMO's for a long time and I generally purchase and install the next new flavor of the month title and play it for at least a little while. Being said, my all time favorite job/class was Summoner from FFXI. And that one job and its play style has kept me going back to FFXI every year or so.

Ive parsed top 100 on world of logs as heals, tanking, and dps for WoW. Ive participated in local tournaments for SC2. But the thing that kept me coming back to FFXI Summoner wasn't about some DPS epeen chart. I didnt care that I wasn't top dps. I didn't care that I wasn't top heals. I didn't care that I was never going to get a merit party as a summoner, or that my dynamis leader always gave me crap because I wanted to raid as a summoner. Sure I would play my BLM/RDM/etc when the LS needed it, but you better believe Im jumping at my chance to play summoner first. You know why? Because I loved the class, because I loved the play style, because I payed my sub, and because IDGAF predator claws was awesome. That the emphasis was put on the Avatars and not the summoner was what kept me coming back.

The summons themselves were what was amazing, not the caster.
Imagine my delight when I heard that Summoner was going to be added to this game. 'Awesome' I thought, 'time to let those Avatars, GF's, Aeons, whatever they are in this game do work!!'. So Ive waited a while for SE to get out the launch bugs, and for the launch to iron itself out.

And that's where I fell into the 'trap'. I expected Summoner to be the unique class and play style I loved from FFXI. And if not a carbon copy, at least something similar. I expected my summons to be awesome. And it would seem some of you did too.

It isn't. I find that what I have is a cut and paste Warlock class from World of Warcraft. Don't get me wrong, there is NOTHING WRONG with locks in WoW. Its a fun play style. Dotting someone up in PVP and standing around while they try to save themselves is great. Casting while moving away from boss mechanics in raids? Fun for everyone!

Some of the player base (for example Kevee who is no doubt waiting to reply to this in the same 'LOOK HOW GOOD MY DPS IS, YOU'RE A BAD PLAYER' response she has every other post) doesn't get that for me, that's not what Summoner is about.
I'm sure you parse top 10 world on HM Throne of Thunder Fights, and you no doubt carry your team to perfect victories in LoL Challenger tier. And for you FFXIV Summoner is a well oiled DPS chart topping machine. But for me and it would seem some of the other players, I came in with a base expectation of what the Summoner class was all about and at the downright very least I expected the summons themselves to be interesting.

They aren't. The fact that Summoner is a dot class is irrelevant. The first time I saw Garuda flying behind someone in Limsa Lominsa I couldn't believe it. I actually zoomed in to see if SE just went ahead and stole the character model from the WoW imp as well. I came in with the base expectation that the summoned elementals would be the focus of the class. I thought they would make the same battlefield splash that they do in every other Final Fantasy title. They don't. They aren't even interesting to look at and they aren't the focus of the class like I thought they would be. Yes Kevee, Ive seen your numerous posts. 20-30% of my dps!! That's great. Its so awesome I'm going to go get a kitten and name it kevee. Im thrilled summoner is on top of the DPS chart (finally!!). But for gods sake SE, at least make the class revolve around the summoned entity (lol at the comment Yuna didnt revolve around her summons). Make the summons fun and engaging. A lock clone wasn't what I was looking for, and wasn't what I expected to get.

I will continue to play this (30 dollars is a more than fair for how many hours it will take to reach level cap), but for me at 50 im done. I fell into the trap of expecting something from the class and then seeing my expectations fail to meet the reality of this 'check the block dot class' summoner.
You want to go P2P SE? Fine. My love for the FF series merits at least a look at the game. But if you want my monthly sub you need to go in and take a hard look at what you think a summoner should be, and what this class in FFXIV is.

This man deserves an award for such a well written post and honestly completely agree with him on every single point.