Actualy Summoning in our near future?

[Danbo05]

Call it a feeling, but with the way they did the Shiva storyline, I wouldn't be surprised if they altered the SMN job at some point in 3.0.

Before you jump on the bandwagon of "the job is fine as it is, don't fix it" or the bandwagon of "lol another Akiza", please understand that I'm in the same boat as a lot of you guys, but I'm willing to admit that the design is rather disappointing, and although the job itself is REALLY good, you don't really feel like a Summoner.

Now as for the Shiva storyline, if you do the main scenario, it pretty much speaks for itself.
Spoilers for those that haven't done the 2.4 main scenario below:

Lady Iceheart actually SUMMONS Shiva with the use of some form of aether, maintaining her will and control over her body. Unlike the Egis who are aetheric matter that which accompanies the adventure, Lady Iceheart becomes Shiva herself.

It just leads me to think, that with this lore now a part of Eorzea, wouldn't it make sense now to actually make this the ACTUAL way of summoning in FFXIV? It just feels so much more Final Fantasy-like, than the way it currently is.

[Alberel]

Iceheart essentially becomes Shiva by summoning her into her own body. To me that feels considerably less 'Final Fantasy' than summoning a separate entity under your command.

Having said that this would definitely open the way for SMNs to be able to essentially merge with their egis in some form. Maybe as a new cooldown skill or perhaps even their new limit break..?

[Mholito]

Iceheart essentially becomes Shiva by summoning her into her own body. To me that feels considerably less 'Final Fantasy' than summoning a separate entity under your command.

Having said that this would definitely open the way for SMNs to be able to essentially merge with their egis in some form. Maybe as a new cooldown skill or perhaps even their new limit break..?

It would be cool to be able to temporarily absorb an egi to power yourself up, similar to what Tristan does.

[Icecylee]

You do realize that the main purpose of the group the PC belongs to is to find, hunt down, and destroy primals, right...? It would be more than a little odd if we suddenly started transforming into them ourselves on a regular basis to kill marmots and dodos.

[Alenore]

That wouldn't change anything. First because she did have crystals at her disposal for the summoning, just less.
Second because it still greatly taxes the land of its aether (the readings were the same, as the scions said), and that's the exact reason why we defeat them in the first place.

[Morningstar1337]

I knwo this has been brought u somewhere before (maybe even in this thread itself) but I'm wondering if the Asceans are trying to make the Warriors of Light (us) a vessel or Zodiark

[Clawtooth]

I knwo this has been brought u somewhere before (maybe even in this thread itself) but I'm wondering if the Asceans are trying to make the Warriors of Light (us) a vessel or Zodiark

Essentially what my theory here boils down to.

[Morningstar1337]

Essentially what my theory here boils down to.

Yeah That's where I seen this being discussed previously

[myahele]

I don't know about that. But if anything with the introduction of auracite and how someone woth the echo can become vessals of primals then perhaps the FC summoning they planned can be possible lore wise

[TinyRedLeaf]

Heh, I was on the verge of creating a similar thread, but it looks like I was beaten to it.

First of all, though, let's stop mistaking opinion for fact.

please understand that I'm in the same boat as a lot of you guys, but I'm willing to admit that the design is rather disappointing, and although the job itself is REALLY good, you don't really feel like a Summoner.

No, I disagree. I love the job, I think its design is innovative within the context of Final Fantasy lore, I believe the job is REALLY good if played properly, and I really do feel like a summoner when playing the role.

If I had to quibble, I would say it's odd that a summoner's DoTs are actually diseases rather than elemental attacks. But even this is an opinion, and it's probably true only for me.

In any case, I've long since been able to reconcile this apparent mismatch in "flavour" by recalling that the summoner as we know it in the Seventh Astral Era is likely just a pale imitation of the original Allagan summoner. We've picked up some of the key skills from the soul stones we possess, but there is likely to be a lot more magic that has been lost forever to the passage of time.

The present-day summoner was, I like to imagine, re-created by filling in some of the gaps with knowledge borrowed from arcanima, hence the reason that Bane and Virus are part of the summoner's repertoire.

And as for why an arcanist inflicts disease-based damage, that's because arcanists play a variety of roles, from all-purpose civil administrators, to humble doctors and frontline tacticians. It would be a simple matter for a learned arcanist to convert his ability to mend into an ability to maim — you cure a disease by removing the cause; conversely, you can inflict a disease by introducing the cause.

As for gaining the ability to summon like Iceheart did, like others have pointed out, it wouldn't make any sense from a lore perspective. The day we, the protagonist, starts summoning primals in this fashion is the day we have gone rogue, and we would end up being hunted down by the very people who are now our colleagues, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Admittedly, that would make a nice story, but I doubt we'd ever go down that path.

The most disturbing revelation, though, is that Iceheart is an Echo-user. The Ascians may have manipulated events to make this possible, but Iceheart herself appears to believe that it was Hydaelyn who gave her the ability.

She shares our belief that her ultimate goal is to end the cycle of strife, but she has chosen a highly unorthodox means of achieving this end.

Iceheart's existence reminds me of the many other Version 1.0 Echo-blessed Pathwalkers who went missing more than five years ago. Minfilia, who led the Path of the Twelve at the time, observed that some of those who did return refused to share what they'd learnt from their journeys of self-discovery, presumably because they had seen or experienced something so horrific that they would rather not talk about it.

Iceheart may have gone through something similar, which makes me wonder what the lost Pathwalkers are up to today, assuming that they are still alive.