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

[Sanguisio]

The only reason to use Garuda is because she extends RS DOTS which is amazing !, but she also avoids damage by being ranged. If garuda lost contagion and ifrit had his defs ramped up he would be better as he does more damage as an egi afaik.

They need to sort it out so Ifrit does more single target damage and garuda does more AOE, titan as a tank egi is good and he should be left how he is for the fun aspect imo.
We should lose fester, but the Egis need a huge boost in DPS to make up for it, this is a SMN class so fester has no relevance at all, how the hell is a single attack outshining the key aspect of a class, if anything have our DOTs tied to Egi damage.

[Wolf_Shay]

The issue with the Summoner is the Arcanist has more control over their ability to shape Aether since they can shape it into replicas of Carbuncle and Topaz. Summoner's are an equipped job that enhances the abilities of the Acanist which means they should have greater control over their ability to shape Aether and be able to shape corrupted Aether into weaker and smaller replicas of the Primals but instead the Arcanist power got nerfed some how and lost the ability to control Aether when the Summoner job stone got equipped.

Read your lore...Carbuncles are formed when Arcanists magick gemstones, bringing that latent power into a physical form based on the gemstone used. Summoners however, shape a drop of the primal's power into a semi-crystalline form with no such focus, elemental power to boot which is not an Arcanist's strong suit.

[Judge_Xero]

Yeah...I've never had a problem with the way the egis look. I actually like the look of Titan a lot. Garuda is my least favorite, but I think that's because she isn't as "active" as the others who go around and smash things. But that'd be like complaining about casters not running around bashing things with their books and sticks.

I like the way the egis look too. Maybe it's a difference of seeing them at 1024x720 on low VS 2560x1440 on Maximum I'm not sure. Also with all the items to watch in endgame I'm glad my pet isn't any larger or flashier.

[Akiza]

Read your lore...Carbuncles are formed when Arcanists magick gemstones, bringing that latent power into a physical form based on the gemstone used. Summoners however, shape a drop of the primal's power into a semi-crystalline form with no such focus, elemental power to boot which is not an Arcanist's strong suit.

The issue is the lore doesn't explain why Summoner's get the Egis when getting smaller and weaker replicas of the Primals would make more sense and better design choice while providing a Final Fantasy feel to the Summoner.

[YanderePrincess]

And this is the part where you sound like Akiza.

Then apparently you need to learn how to read?

Akiza's suggestions are to make the egis stronger and more like the primals in their combat capabilities. I'm just talking visuals, nothing that affects game mechanics, combat, or any need for rebalancing, as there is no need to rebalance Summoner. Frankly, I'm asking for far less than you are, because I don't care about making it "more of a pet class than it already is." All I care about is giving it more of an FF feel by improving the models of the Egis. In fact, your request for restructuring of SMN sounds more like Akiza than anything I've requested.

There is something that has occurred to me, though, and this might be the reason they went the Egi route for the visuals rather than a route more akin to the Avatars in FFXI. At least during my 6 years of FFXI (I quit before cap raised above 75), a summoner could not keep the Avatars out 100% of the time. There were scenarios where they could be kept out for long periods of time through judicious use of refresh tools, but that and the cost of keeping the avatar out would essentially negate each other, so if the Summoner were doing anything other than just utilizing the Avatars, they were still going to have an issue of running out of mana (and IIRC they couldn't rest to recover mana with the avatar out even if refreshes were "negating" the mp drain of keeping them out).

Anyway, my point with that is those Avatars were much bigger, often bigger than the summoner (unless you were a galka, anyway), but they weren't out 100% of the time, they were usually only out for small periods at a time, often just long enough to use their ability. The environments were also generally (though not always) more open, especially with the "set up camp and pull mobs to it" style of gameplay used for leveling and meriting.

In FFXIV, the Egis are out 100% of the time and dungeons are generally less open environments than you had in FFXI. These two things make having the larger avatars potentially more problematic (especially with Titan) as they can take up a lot of space and block vision and feel like they're in the way. The Egi setup they went with does help to alleviate this potential issue, so that was likely their reasoning on the route they went visually.

That said, I don't think it would've posed enough of an issue to really require the route they took, and I think it'd be better to have to deal with the summoned beings being a bit more "in the way" to have the better FF feel.

[YanderePrincess]

Read your lore...Carbuncles are formed when Arcanists magick gemstones, bringing that latent power into a physical form based on the gemstone used. Summoners however, shape a drop of the primal's power into a semi-crystalline form with no such focus, elemental power to boot which is not an Arcanist's strong suit.

Then apparently they need to go back and rewrite the dialogue of the Arcanist quests, because the Arcanist quests make it rather clear that the carbuncles are shaped by the Arcanist through use of the right aetheric formulas and geometric equations being applied as they manipulate the aether they study with such scientific specificity.

As far as your statement about elemental power, that's irrelevant to an arcanist's shaping of aether. It's their scientific, methodical, and analytical approach to aether and the manipulation of aether that allows them to bypass the potential weaknesses of being limited by elemental aspects of aether.

And, if anything, having less control over the aether because it's a piece of the primal's power would actually support it more closely resembling the primal as the primal would potentially be more in control of its shape than the summoner as the summoner would possibly not have the control required to shape it differently than it's natural physical form.

[Akiza]

That's the point since enven the Primals Essence is uncontrollable at firsts than how can the Summoner shape it into the Egis when the Primal's essence would want to take on smaller and weaker forms of their corresponding Primal. Either Square Enix has to rewrite the lore which will allow Summoner's to summon the Primals or they have to redo the Arcanist and Summoner quest lines which will piss alot of players off.

[Wolf_Shay]

In order.

1. Yes Arcanists use magickal formulae to shape aether into desired magickal forms. They use this process to magick gemstones which is directly referred to within Arcanist lore as well as the basic description of the class, Emerald, Topaz, and Amber aren't just color palettes.

2. Arcanists are limited in the elemental aspects they can harness. I said it wasn't their strong suit, not that they can't. The summoner involve performing rituals that shift their aetheric attunement to specific elements in order to draw the primal essence out and give it shape as the Egi.

3. The primals are INTANGIBLE, save for elder primals. The form we see is due to the amount of crystals used and zealous faith applied by its servants. Without these, the primal has no earthly power and remains in a sort of limbo. What Summoners do in this regard is take a small bit of that power, coupled with their own, and shape it into a form that that evokes the ESSENCE of the primal

[YanderePrincess]

They use this process to magick gemstones which is directly referred to within Arcanist lore

Care to actually back up this claim? Because it's not mentioned -at all- in the arcanist class quest dialogue, or any other in-game Arcanist lore I've seen.

[Wolf_Shay]

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/game/#!/magic/content