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

[Spellbinder]

I actually think CoX's Mastermind (Think that was the name of the class) was the best pet class in an MMO.

Although I don't think a Mastermind style class would work in FF14, this times infinity.

[Crevox]

They tried a Summoner class mostly about the power of the summon in FFXI. It became half-level main healer with a giant mana pool.

Not because of the design concept, but because of the number tunings and balance. It could've worked perfectly fine - however, many things held it back:

-All the attacks being categorized into one LONG cooldown (Blood Pact: Rage)
-Low damage numbers, often lower than a BLM nuke
-High miss rates + low damage + giving TP to the mob on swing made it a BAD thing for the pet to hit mobs

They've done a lot of things recently to try to fix it (upped physical damage of avatars, lowered blood pact cooldowns, etc), but yes, it still has some core design flaws. There's nothing wrong with taking a good concept and polishing it up/fixing it/learning from mistakes.

[Akiza]

Summoner needed to be rebalanced since October of last year but it got nerfed instead. The Summoner branching off of the Arcanist and getting dots were fine Square seemed to forget that the equip job would be a Summoner not a dot master. Fester and Tridisater should have been on the Arcanist and the Summoner should have gotten more pet buffs and spell commands also it should have been more on pet mechanics.

Add Summoner spells that commands the pet to cause aoe elemental damage and weather affects.

[BinaryJack]

To be honest. I want PROCs.
I think we are probably the only Job without any PROCs?
Even Scholar gets a free Succor with Sacred Soil.

I would maim for a free Aetherflow Proc or a free Fester.

[Crevox]

but it got nerfed instead.

It needed a nerf. We're still the highest DPS right now even after the nerf. Again, this thread isn't really about our DPS.

[YanderePrincess]

Summoner needed to be rebalanced since October of last year but it got nerfed instead. The Summoner branching off of the Arcanist and getting dots were fine Square seemed to forget that the equip job would be a Summoner not a dot master. Fester and Tridisater should have been on the Arcanist and the Summoner should have gotten more pet buffs and spell commands also it should have been more on pet mechanics.

Add Summoner spells that commands the pet to cause aoe elemental damage and weather affects.

I understand your desire for a "true" pet class that focuses virtually entirely on the pet, but that's not what Summoner or Scholar or Arcanist are, nor does it feel like that was the intention.

Remember, the advanced jobs are augmentations of the base job, not entirely new jobs. Arcanist is about a scientific approach to magic, utilizing equations, geometry, etc. It's highly systematic. The current incarnation of Summoner is a natural progression from that in the goal of increasing one's power, analyzing and utilizing aetheric flow to draw upon the might of beings powered, even created, entirely by aether, which your original carbuncles are merely a small attempt at. The Egis represent using that power to augment your homunculi, while the other spells/abilities, such as Fester, represent applying that power to your other equations.

In many ways, Scholar is less of a logical progression for Arcanist because you obtain a fairy rather than fabricating it the way you do your carbuncles. The Fairy is more of a familiar than an homunculus.

Yes, this is all tying into the lore, but the lore is the explanation of how the progression occurs in the first place. Yes, it's not the "pure pet class" you may desire, but that does not mean that the class requires a complete overhaul just to match what -you- want.

As for a simple balance statement, while I can see -some- logic in giving Fester to Arcanist instead of making it a Summoner-only ability, that would give the ability to Scholar, and Scholar has no need of that ability, nor any reason to have that ability (making wounds/poisons/etc. Fester seems rather counter-intuitive for a healer). And like I said before, the ability represents a Summoner using the power of primals to augment what she could already do.

[subteraneanbird]

They should have made ACN more about DoTs (essentially staying what it is now), then made SMN more about pets and SCH more about heals (which it's a perfectly fine healer already).

And how can they manage that when Summoner builds off of Arcanist and gets all of 5 new abilities (7 if you wanna be picky and count the reskinned summons)? Frankly it's a miracle they managed to make Scholar as effective a healer as it is, drawing off a DPS class. I also really see no reason to dramatically alter a job when it and the base class share the same role. I think Summoner as it is currently is well tuned and pretty effective. Not my cup of tea (but DPS in general isn't) but absolutely a good job that needs minor tweaks to the actual egi to solve the majority of its issues.

[Tyvek]

Summoner isn't too bad as it is now, my hope is that when they adjust the egi's ifrit get a big damage increase folloew by changing his shield to a group ability. I hope they revamp titan to change his stun ability to a voke type ability so we actually could use it as a tank would be really nice.

[DistraughtKoala]

Monks are better.

[Wolf_Shay]

Add Summoner spells that commands the pet to cause aoe elemental damage and weather affects.

Ok...I'll bite...what POSSIBLE benefit could you glean from causing a localized storm? Or in Titan's case, rubble?