SUMMONER, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE OR ADD? (EVOLUTION & STAT ALLOCATION)

[Arcari]

I've seen these "I HATE HOW SUMMONER PETS LOOK" threads pop up more than any other criticisms. There were a few "SMN don't have any burst -- this is stupid" threads during the first week... I guess until people realized we have ways around that and SMN sustained damage is more than enough to make up for our lack in burst when killing adds ASAP. (Fester charges are more than enough to pull your weight on Titan heart, for example... and planning to Bane and spreading DoTs as soon as adds spawn on Garuda will make up for the lack of burst there.)

People also complain about Egi damage without actually parsing to see how much damage the pet actually does. I can't give an exact estimate, but a pet definitely does more than 10%. A summoner's damage is already pretty high... it's usually the pet that sets a summoner's full damage over other players with equal gear. Keep in mind that your pet's stats SEEM to increase with YOUR gear. (Or at least the HP from your VIT does... I haven't strictly parsed pet damage with gear on/off.)

The most legitimate complaint/criticism that I hear involves the fact that summoner operates VERY similarly to an Affliction (DoT spec) warlock in WoW. It's true... although the lore is different... but I can't think of a great 'fix' to this since this is a game that encourages you to ALWAYS be doing something (very rarely do you just 'stand still' like in FFXI). If anyone can think of a great fix to the "Summoner = Warlock" complaint that actually works with this game, please speak up now. Saying, "I wish our pet did more" isn't enough because standing there and commanding a pet just isn't going to work in a fast-paced game like this. We aren't playing FFXI anymore. =/

Agree 100%.

The Summoner fanboys need to first get it through their heads that this is not FFXI, nor any other FF in the series. You simply do not have the time to stand there and do your minute long incantation or draw your summoning circle to call out a massive pet of doom. You would go up against the very core of this game.

I can understand egis not looking "cool" enough, because that's mainly an opinionated viewpoint.

You want to know something funny? For whatever reason, it's always Summoner that always gets all the job fanatics up in a bunch. No other job seems to be able to accomplish this (well except maybe Red Mage, and I still remember some stupid rage about Scholar and the fairies in the beta forums, but people have shut up about it since). Saw it in FFXI, and it's reared its ugly head again here. Is the "reputation" of Summoner truly that important that people are willing to make 9001 topics on the "cool" factor? How about just having a job that gets what it needs to done? Aside from UI issues, Summoner is good at what it needs to do in this game.

Also, more opinion: I like the fact that Summoner can hold its own in a fight if for whatever reason your egis are disabled. Self-sufficiency is awesome. Personally, I wouldn't want too much focus on the pet. 50/50 split at the very most.