So why was Summoner advertised as a pet class

[Sotek]

What about Swiftcast? It's almost instant that way.

Problem with that is it doesn't really help.

Lets say I only want to use Garuda for Contagion, because that's all she's good for. It has a 60 second recast, so every 60 seconds I'll want to switch to Garuda, use Contagion, then switch back to Ifrit. So I'll want to switch twice every 60 seconds, while Swiftcast itself has a recast of 60 seconds... You also better hope you don't need to Resurrect anyone... You'll end up with periods where you have Garuda out when you really don't want to, and periods when you're stuck with Ifrit when you could use Contagion...

I suppose it's still possible, I'd really need to play Summoner more to figure it out though.

[Ri_ri]

Make them invulnerable to AoE damage, give a "rotation" where the summoner presses the skills, and the summon would do it.
I like playing summoner, but when I change to black mage it's like if a weight was taken from my shoulders... the weight of babysitting a pet that adds very little to my gameplay.

[Maye]

Problem with that is it doesn't really help.

Lets say I only want to use Garuda for Contagion, because that's all she's good for. It has a 60 second recast, so every 60 seconds I'll want to switch to Garuda, use Contagion, then switch back to Ifrit. So I'll want to switch twice every 60 seconds, while Swiftcast itself has a recast of 60 seconds... You also better hope you don't need to Resurrect anyone... You'll end up with periods where you have Garuda out when you really don't want to, and periods when you're stuck with Ifrit when you could use Contagion...

I suppose it's still possible, I'd really need to play Summoner more to figure it out though.

I really wanted Ifrit to do more damage than Garuda (at least outside of fights where Contagion + Bane are huge damage boosts) but all of my testing and parsing shows that Garuda just does more damage overall except in incredibly controlled environments. Even a fight without many hiccups for Ifrit (HM Titan for example) I found that even with a small amount of travel time Garuda did overall more damage. And this is before including the benefits from Contagion.

[Alberel]

Is Ifrit still bugged so that he attacks so slowly that his higher potency still equates to lower DPS than Garuda? Or did they fix that?

IMO there's still potential for other egis to have a use but they really need to give them more specific uses.

Ideally I would suggest they function as follows:

Titan is fine as is.
Garuda augments our DOTs which imo should result in her basic attacks being weaker. Overall it would be higher DPS for the job as a whole but it would be more reliant on the player.
Ifrit is melee, he's riskier to use and less mobile therefore he should hit a lot harder. Good for situations where you don't have time to stack dots or make use of contagion.
Leviathan should focus on AOE damage with a PBAE auto attack.
Ramuh or Shiva should be focused on CC, with the other offering some kind of support utility.

As much as some might like to think DPS is the be-all-end-all of raiding it's not. I've seen SMNs make use of Titan as an OT in many raid situations, including in Coil. If Ifrit was fixed to do higher base damage than garuda we'd have more of a choice to make there too. The future egis do still have the potential to offer new things to the job.

[Sotek]

I really wanted Ifrit to do more damage than Garuda (at least outside of fights where Contagion + Bane are huge damage boosts) but all of my testing and parsing shows that Garuda just does more damage overall except in incredibly controlled environments. Even a fight without many hiccups for Ifrit (HM Titan for example) I found that even with a small amount of travel time Garuda did overall more damage. And this is before including the benefits from Contagion.

That's a shame, really something they should work on then... In other news, Crimson Cyclone really really really should be changed to a dash attack, similar to Monks Shoulder Tackle skill. The animation is already perfect for it, Stun renders Crimson Cyclone worthless for any serious content, and Summon already has a Stun move on Titan... As a dash attack it could hopefully close some of the difference in DPS Ifrit suffers from having to float up to the enemy first.

[Maye]

Garuda is effected by spell speed but Ifrit is not. IIRC my Garuda has a cooldown of 2.86s and my Ifrit has a cooldown of 3.00s

Windblade = 100 / 2.86s = 35 Potency Per Second
Burning Strike = 120 / 3.00s = 40 Potency Per Second

On paper only, Ifrit does about 14% more damage than Garuda in perfect conditions. (exclusively single target) while Garuda offers much more consistent output, more opportunities to proc bonus spell speed, more accessible abilities (easier to use AOE, Enkindle isn't an awkward to position cone) AND contagion.

[Volsung]

That's a shame, really something they should work on then... In other news, Crimson Cyclone really really really should be changed to a dash attack, similar to Monks Shoulder Tackle skill. The animation is already perfect for it, Stun renders Crimson Cyclone worthless for any serious content, and Summon already has a Stun move on Titan... As a dash attack it could hopefully close some of the difference in DPS Ifrit suffers from having to float up to the enemy first.

Also because garuda deals magic damage, even though her potency is less, it actually makes her do a lot more damage. Another reason ifrits damage is lower, is because his attacks get him locked in animation and he can't perform one of his attacks every 3 seconds, instead he tacks on an extra second before he can use it.
Add on contagion and garuda just has an easier time in most situations.

To overcome these odds, ifrit would need a little more potency or to have his attacks worked out to where he doesnt get locked

EDIT: back on topic. YES IFRIT NEEDS REWOKRED. but titan is awesome >.> he may not get used all the time but he definitely has places
that having him > having a DD version of him could ever be.

And yes I do hope we'll get a pet class where the pet is the focus and not the side attraction.

[NefGP]

XI summoner was infinitely better, and is still considered something of a broken (in the bad way) class in terms of its design.

[Alhanelem]

XI summoner was infinitely better, and is still considered something of a broken (in the bad way) class in terms of its design.

XI's summoner was only better in terms of a "coolness" factor. Functionally, smn is better in XIV in virtually every way. You couldn't order your pet to stay somewhere, and the overall power level of the job was drastically lower in XI. SMN may not be as "bad ass" as in XI, but at least it's functional and accepted to do its job in XIV, unlike in XI where it was treated like a subpar healer with a lot of MP.

[Duelle]

They aren't no this is true. But, they are a large source of damage and if you aren't keeping them on sic all the time, they are very interactive and give more robust command usage.

As for this whole desire to neuter smn and make their pets the primary source of their damage... Oy. Given how wonderfully the pet control system works (ask schs... really they'll tell you a lot) and what that whole pet only thing did to smn in FF11, no thanks. Not again, glad I'm not a complete slave to a difficult to control/limiting mechanic like that.

I like you. You talk sense and have learned from the past.