So, the summoner...

[Samsta]

I have seen many threads here about changing the summoner, and I would like to give my own thoughts about this matter, as I am a pretty fresh summoner.

The job itself is fun to play, but what I have the most problem with is the fact that it's a dot class much more than a summoning class, and I don't like that. It's named summoner, so it should be about summons. I don't expect SE to change the job, it would be so weird to completely overhaul one job when the game has been out quite a while already, but some major adjustments should take place:

Summon III
this is completely useless, I made a thread a while ago about this and learned that ifrit has no place in any content, and I hate when we get some abilities that are just never worth using, it's the most frustrating thing that an rpg game can do. Wasted code.


it would be easy to make ifrit usable, here are some changes that came into my mind:

Change the radiant shield to emit a damaging wave around ifrit, kinda like a dot, it would emit the damage at the same time that dots tick, potency should be something like 25-30 and range would be 6y

on top of that, fix the burning strike and increase it's potency to 140, those changes alone to ifrit would make him usable against normal mobs in dungeons, while garuda would usually be used during boss fights. This way all the 3 summons would actually be usable in different situations.

tri-disaster
I think everyone knows why this spell needs a change, it's just pretty much useless, it has cool animation and it's a job skill but it's just another spell that pretty much has no use. I don't think it's good to have very situational spells like this, sure it's good to have spells that are only usable in certain scenarios but I can't really think any use to this spell, bind is pretty crappy at the moment.

enkindle
200-300 potency attack at 5 min cd, am I the only one who just can't understand this? Either make the cd shorter (which I am not a fan of) or make the spell stronger.

my idea: change the spell to summon the real primal to the battlefield and make him unleash the ultimate attack, potency should be something like 1200-1800, and to actually make this not op and somewhat situational, make it to banish your pet after the ultimate ability and lock the summon ability for 20 secs or so, this would make it an awesome spell that let's you feel that you are actually a summoner, and it would actually be somewhat situational, like in titan you would save this to the end of the heart phase, when in fights that have no dps checks it would just be nice bonus damage. While the potency sound scary, think about this:

Let's say garuda's enkindle would have 1500 potency, the 20 secs summon lock out plus the time it takes to summon her again without swiftcast and actually have her attacking the enemy would be almost 30 secs, during this time she would have theoretically unleashed 10 wind blades, and those all do 1000 potency added up, plus the contagion that you can't use at that time. If you use swiftcast to summon her again the plus damage would be more.

These are the major things that annoy me, let me know what do you think about my ideas and present your own :3

[Ozaro]

I agree wholeheartedly as a main smn. DoT class was not what i signed up for, however smn is still fun to play. Ifrit of course needs a makeover for smn versatility as we never need to smn him for anything.
I especially like the idea of more enkindle power and summoning the full primal for a powerful attack and banish the pet, seems like a fair and satisfying change.

[OmegaNovaios]

DOT ticks will not break bind. Makes Tri-Disaster VERY useful in certain situations if used correctly and the party cooperates. If Tri-Disaster isn't needed then it's not a very difficult fight then is it?

But yeah something needs to be done about Ifrit-Egi. Basically he is worthless except in PVP and even then "LOL" for a pet only good in PVP. No other job has a PVE based "Job Action" only suitable for PVP. But considering it's a core mechanic to the lore of SMN this is pathetic on SE's part for balancing it. Either Ifrit-Egi's Radiant Shield Action needed to be swapped out with something that is a core mechanic to SMN like how Contagion is or Ifrit needs +25% DMG and +25% HP buffs. Already Titan-Egi does 75% of the DMG that Ifrit-Egi does and he has way more survivability and Ifrit-Egi only has 500 more HP than Garuda-Egi has. Ifrit-Egi should do the MOST damage of all 3 pets just because it's a melee pet that can't dodge. A very similar reason why all melee jobs were buffed and why ranged jobs received debuffs in patch 2.1.

Titan-Egi is fine the way it is. Garuda-Egi should be a ranged AOE caster (more AOE than it has now) and Ifrit should be a burst-able single target melee. All future pets should bring something unique to the table and not another option for DPS where we just replace the old pet and take away more actions from our action pool for the illusion of "MOAR DPS PLZ".

For example all Egis should have an auto attack/DPS action for it's 3s CD, but the other actions should be based on other roles. Leviathan-Egi could be a healing pet (this won't take away from SCH, it will just make SMN viable for support healing as you would never bring a SCH for the healing role in EG just to DPS while the pet healed by itself). Ramuh-Egi could be a buffing pet (perhaps Enthunder: adds an extra 50 potency to all auto attacks of nearby party members; Shock Spikes: buff all nearby party members with an attack that reflects damage for 50-100 potency and Stuns the attacker for 5s, etc). Shiva-Egi could be an enfeebling or crowd control pet (actions that Slow, Bind, Paralyze, Sleep, etc.). Or anyone of these could be replaced with a support pet that works similar to BRD (restores MP/TP in some fashion, increases/resets the duration of buffs on party members, applies all buffs on 1 party member to all nearby party members, etc.)

Would be nice to some thing cooler done with Enkindle. Making it stronger isn't really necessary if you compare to how much dmg SMN is already doing total, but having the Egi transform into a stronger version for 30 secs and then having access to a special attack or special buffs similar to FFXI style during that time would be great. I'm not a fan of the Egi disappearing for 30 seconds because that would make Titan-Egi kinda fail for its support tank role.

[Mimilu]

I get that you're trying to make egi's more like past summons for the FF series, powerful spells with long, fancy cutscenes, but your Enkindle feels like an extra LB. It's literally on par with with both the melee and caster DPS's level 1 LBs (your enkindle: 1,500, LB: 1,400). What's to stop people from making up a full-party rotation with a party with 4-8 SMNs in it? Not to mention Enkindle only has a 300 sec cooldown, how long does it take to fill the first LB bar?

[jlewiss]

I get that you're trying to make egi's more like past summons for the FF series, powerful spells with long, fancy cutscenes, but your Enkindle feels like an extra LB. It's literally on par with with both the melee and caster DPS's level 1 LBs (your enkindle: 1,500, LB: 1,400). What's to stop people from making up a full-party rotation with a party with 4-8 SMNs in it? Not to mention Enkindle only has a 300 sec cooldown, how long does it take to fill the first LB bar?

lol what? only 300 sec cooldown? In most WP/AK runs thats 3 times max (unless your going slow then 4) not to mention I have no idea where you got that potetncy number from because enkindle only has 250 potency.

[OmegaNovaios]

I get that you're trying to make egi's more like past summons for the FF series, powerful spells with long, fancy cutscenes, but your Enkindle feels like an extra LB. It's literally on par with with both the melee and caster DPS's level 1 LBs (your enkindle: 1,500, LB: 1,400). What's to stop people from making up a full-party rotation with a party with 4-8 SMNs in it? Not to mention Enkindle only has a 300 sec cooldown, how long does it take to fill the first LB bar?

--Pet:
Garuda: Aerial Blast - Deals wind damage with a potency of 250 to target and all enemies nearby it.
Titan: Earthen Fury - Deals earth damage with a potency of 200 to all nearby targets. Additional Effect: Razed Earth Duration: 15s
Ifrit: Inferno - Deals fire damage with a potency of 200 to all enemies in a cone before it. Additional Effect: Fire damage over time. Potency: 20 Duration: 15s
-Total Inferno Potency: 200 + 100 = 300

--SMN:
Bio: Potency: 40 Duration: 18s
-Total Bio Potency: 240
Bio II: Potency: 35 Duration: 30s
-Total Bio II Potency: 350
Miasma: Potency: 20 Additional Effect: Unaspected damage over time. Potency: 35 Duration: 24s
-Total Miasma Potency: 280
Shadow Flare: Potency: 25 Duration: 30s
-Total Shadow Flare Potency: 250 to any enemies who enter
Fester: 300 Potency

--BLM:
Fire: 150 Potency
Fire + Astral Fire III: 300 Potency
Fire III: 220 Potency
Fire III + Astral Fire III: 440 Potency
Thunder III: 60 Potency Additional Effect: Lightning damage over time. Potency: 35 Duration: 24s
-Total Thunder III Potency: 60 + 280 = 340

--LB
Caster LB1: 1400 Potency
Caster LB2: 3000 Potency
Caster LB3: 5400 Potency

Melee LB1: 2300 Potency
Melee LB2: 5000 Potency
Melee LB3: 9000 Potency

Reference: http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Limit_Break

While Enkindle does add to the already VERY high SMN DPS and boosting it is unnecessary for SMN as a DPS role, the 300s CD for what is SMN's most iconic action is VERY boring when compared to other actions in this game including itself with EVERY boring DOT surpassing it (not including Contagion to extend the DOTs and then Bane to spread those extended DOTs to nearby enemies) due to stats weighing in on Caster Potency more than Pet Potency.

If you notice Garuda's 100 Potency Wind Blade action hits for around the same damage as the SMN's 80 Potency Ruin/Ruin II actions. And considering that Wind Blade is on a 3s unbuffed GCD and Ruin/Ruin II are on a 2.5s unbuffed GCD then SMN spamming just Ruin/Ruin II (w/o auto attack) is stronger than Garuda (SMN's highest DPS pet on Obey which is stronger than Garuda on Sic) who doesn't even have an auto attack.

[SenKoyo]

I don't mind the gameplay, but I don't really understand why I'm summoning elemental beings...and I use diseases. It doesn't feel right. I just feel like I'm abusing Garuda for Contagion, otherwise she doesn't offer much at all.

[Darkstride]

I don't mind the gameplay, but I don't really understand why I'm summoning elemental beings...and I use diseases. It doesn't feel right. I just feel like I'm abusing Garuda for Contagion, otherwise she doesn't offer much at all.

Agreed, there is a disconnect between the spellcasting and the pets. It made more sense back in 1.0 when the original Thaumaturge had all the DoTs (Dia, Bio, Poison, etc) and debuffs. Conjurer had the elemental spells. They should have just left them as-is. Bringing in Arcanist/Summoner as a DoT class was such an odd choice. Since THM had been altered to act as the base class for Black Mage, I feel like they tried to kill 2 birds with one stone by making a pet class AND re-introducing DoT's all in one package. Arcanist/Summoner/Scholar didn't get the treatment it deserved.

[Deifact]

I don't mind the gameplay, but I don't really understand why I'm summoning elemental beings...and I use diseases. It doesn't feel right. I just feel like I'm abusing Garuda for Contagion, otherwise she doesn't offer much at all.

Yeah I agree. Maybe smn should have been Necromancer instead.

[Nux]

I don't mind the gameplay, but I don't really understand why I'm summoning elemental beings...and I use diseases. It doesn't feel right. I just feel like I'm abusing Garuda for Contagion, otherwise she doesn't offer much at all.

The gameplay was nice for DoT class, but as the base design for summoner ... it was bad

for side note this is what i called deceptive advertising, take a look at this i don't think that we're given the power to summon primals or some awesome egis. Its funny that particular page actually made me choose summoner ... well played