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

[TrowaT]

meh. SMN is fine the way it is but I also wouldn't mind some of the suggestions on this thread.

[silentwindfr]

...snip...

ok, let's stop right there the summoner (the jobs) have 5 skill:

- summon 3 (a new pet)
- fester, an attack that give you a nice burst if well used
- tri disaster, a control
- spur, a cd buff for your pet
- enkindle, a new attack for each pet!

from my view point the summoner is oriented pet class... sadly people tend to forget that all the other skill are coming from the arcanist. you will need to wait the increase in cap level for be able to say this class or this class is not this or that.

[Merceus]

I think one of the best points to be made about this is that (as someone else said) most of the job skills give little interaction with the pet. Just more "fire and forget" stuff.
It'd be really neat if we had the ability to move pets while casting but also if melee pets got flanking bonuses. Give us more skills that originate from the pets position (like the Eos AoE heal). Give us better reaction time when hitting command buttons so it feels smoother when controlling the pets. Give us more synergy with what we do and what our pets do, like if we use fester on a target then our Garuda-egi will use that target for contagion (or if we use sustain on Titan-egi it'll use it's defensive cds) to where the only way we have of controlling our pets is not just the manual use of their skills but they react to US and our skill sets as their summoners. Give more diversity in what the summons do other than role. Give us the feeling that we are calling upon the essence of a primal that we've fought and killed by letting the moves not just be named after primal mechanics but also emulate them completely (Landslide for Titan-egi would look like a long strip that knocks enemies back, Garuda-egi could summon little feathers that would surround a target and attack all targets around it, Ifrit-egi could split into three and bum rush a target). Give us back carbuncle... It's way better looking than the Garuda-egi and feels more unique aesthetically too. Let summons cast their signature abilities (enkindle) more often, with lower potency so we get that feeling like they do what we know them for but also change it up a bit.

In general I don't think our job skills are bad at all and if we had a better set up then it'd be neat get more stuff for us and some fire-and-forgets for the pet... it's just that I want it to feel better for remembering that we even have a pet. Start the fight off with 6 (a macro for Rouse, Spur and Enkindle) then don't care about it pretty much until Rouse is off CD (at which point I will actually check to make sure it's alive). Of course this makes me intrinsically worse than a SMN who pays attention to everything but I don't feel that it's by a large degree. :[ I agree with the level cap statement though, hopefully we will see more good stuff for our summons with more levels. ^^

[Nushidorei]

I'm disappointed how Square Enix has not replied to any of the summoner concerns, it is clear that a large amount of people do not like the current state or feel of the summoner class and that it does not match up with most people's thoughts of how a summoner should be. Granted, it works a lot like WoW's Warlocks, which can still be great fun, however this should not be the summoner class.

[Miiu]

Well they answered another summoner thread inside the general discussion forum about general summoner concerns and egi design. They only adressed remarks about the egi design "they're not going to change them" but they welcome all the feedback they can get about summoner. So basically they said nothing :P

[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.

[abzoluut]

FFXIV initially had one magic based DD job (BLM). I think SE wanted one more to balance things out a little (MNK, DRG, BRD all melee/ranged non magic based). SMN then got, to my believe, rushed in so we'd have another caster dealing damage. What we should know also: Yoshi worked on WoW. You can not NOT believe he did not see affliction warlocks play. If any of you played one, FFXIV's SMN is an affliction warlock: the exact same, even the abilities.

Now, that's not a bad thing per defenition. I bet a lot of SMNs out there like their SMN. However, if SE took their time, a SMN would be all about dealing dmg through their summons, hence Summoner. They could have had SMNs summon their pats during battle in order to do abilities: dot A Ifrit, dot B titan, dot C Garuda etc.. Instead of letting there pets auto attack and placing all dots theirselves.

I hope, as many of you here do, they will change this a little. Unfortunately I don't see it happening.

[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]

meh. SMN is fine the way it is but I also wouldn't mind some of the suggestions on this thread.

SMN is a good DPS class and the only thing that need some changes is the pet system. Summons needs to be something better than an auto-attack turret and needs more interactions with the master.

Also, a nice skill from the summoner class from Lineage 2 is Trasfer Pain, a skill that transfers a % of the damage you receive to the summon. Depending on the level MP is comsumed continuously.

I really miss this skill, would be so nice.

[Miiu]

I played summoner in ffxi too (but not past the level 75 cap) and I agree with you that summoners in FFXI got the worst end of the stick. We were main healers and usually restrained from using our summons because they would drain our mp pools too fast. At least before you got all your staves and smn equip (yay free carbi). Only thing you were mostly allowed to use was garuda's group blink. While in practice the job didn't really work and never saw any real change except of new summons during my play time in theory it was more sound and summoner like than the version we got right now. I always was under the impression that a summoner would need need to adapt his pet to the current situation of the fight. The summons in FFXI had that at a "basic" level.

Now we only have garuda out because of contagion.