[Pole] Do you want to see the summoner class reworked?

[Delily]

Like anyone on the forum understands the concept of balance if most people had their way players who main Black Mages think they should have unlimited procs and Firestarter stacks. Bards think they should be fully support and just have abilities that increase the damage of the party. Paladins think they should have cure and holy.

During Fan Fest the forum GM said when making a suggestion be general and don't have a lot of detail about balance, cool downs and cost otherwise it's hard to bring them to the development team.

You're comments about players and balance is nothing new. To paraphrase Mark Jacobs, "when I win, it's fair. when you win, it's overpowered. When we both complain, it's balance." Balance isn't hard. On a Patchwerk fight, a summoner and black mage should do comparable amounts of damage, with the BLM winning out slightly since summoners have a raise and heal (utility). The difference, of course, is that blm bursty, and can foretold damage during a Fire phase, whereas summoners tend to have more even damage. I'm sure the dev teams wants general feedback, but demanding they tear down a class, when they have told you exactly why it was implemented as such probably won't work.

[Delily]

Why? If there are ways to heal your pet, wouldn't he just be considered another party member? Couldn't you just resummon it? Wouldn't they balance that out by giving the summoner abilities(that controls your pets movement or position) to allow your pet to dodge attacks so whether it dies or not is up to the skill of the player?Like having a warp spell that was almost instant so you can teleport the pet next to you for example.If try to think of ideas to make it work,instead of just spouting rhetoric then you will have a thing called integrity where people will take you more seriously.

Take note the above ideas are based on more of pet centric job where you manage your pet more, but your pet plays a larger role and does a lot more damage...so any loss of previous abilities would be offset by increased pet control which would be more tanky/powerful.

Hi, you must be new to MMORPGs.

http://camelotherald.wikia.com/wiki/Necromancer
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Summoner

It's been done before. It doesn't work out as well as you think it would because:

* If the pet dies, you lose all your damage, utility, etc.
* You're partially at the mercy ofthe pet's AI. There's been a few cases where a player will's command will be issued, but simply lost in the queue. Oh yeah, pet pathing generally sucks.
* Stats are a nightmare. If the game snaphots your stats when you summon, you can frontload and suddenly your pet is unstoppable. Or, your stats do nothing in which case your gear is irrelevant. (This one, admittedly isn't as much of a problem, since a game can simply use the player's stats for calculating damage).
* Tethering. If the pet gets tethered, but the the game can't generate a path to you, it will probably despawn. Opps.
* Healing - healers now have to pay attention to your pet as well as you, since your pet is damage. Sure, you have may have a healing ability as well, but people have a tendency to tunnel at the worst possible moments and suddenly, the pet is dead.

The most successful pet classes have always had a portion of the player's damage come from the player.

[dragonfire8974]

Dragonfire you seem to think they can't make better looking summons for some strange reason...

Not me, developers - because it is more graphically intensive than they want to make the egis

If they change their minds, great. congrats, but that's a bad position to debate from.

now that is an interesting idea that summons are intended to be temporary and they could have a greater cooldown so garuda is not the only thing that is summoned, though the casting would have to be reduced

[Akiza]

Camelot Online was horribly unbalance anyways and no Wizard was the most overpowered class because as DoT they blew every other damage dealing class out the water. Necromancer players controlled the minion and disappeared.
Final Fantasy XI the Summoner was a Sub Par White Mage with a Flashy Pet

Everquest 2 has two Summoner Conjuror and Necromancer
The Conuror which has a Stronger Pet and Elemental DoT spells
The Necromancer which has Weaker Pets and Disease DoT spells and cure and restorative protective spells

As you can see from above Conjuror is the Summoner that I want adopted while the Scholar sticks with the Necromancer Archetype.

[Delily]

Akiza, now that's a more realistic suggestion, while I am not too familiar with Eq2's conjuror, it looks like it might be similar to a Body cabalist or enhancement enchanter.

[Deliciou5]

A pet doing the majority of the damage is acknowledged widely be

players AND developers as being terrible and a balance nightmare. Whether you want

to believe it or not is your prerogative and I won't stop you can from wasting your

time at trying to find suggestions to something that will never happen. By the way:

in·teg·ri·ty
inˈteɡrədē/


noun


integrity:
The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.


Integrity has nothing to do with me not wanting to waste my time on something that

everyone with a basic amount of MMO knowledge will understand as being terrible.

Also, if you want to play the "Taking you seriously" card, I have a difficulty

taking anyone seriously when their name has anything to do with Death. Funny game,

isn't it ?

You consider it a waste of time, then why post in the first place?

Also,you know there is such a things as synonyms right?
A word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language, for example shut is a synonym of close.
OR
A person or thing so closely associated with a particular quality or idea that the mention of their name calls it to mind.

Who knows maybe i got definition of integrity wrong, but what i was trying to say is that you just state facts without explaining them. Its just a bunch of rhetoric.

Rhetoric:noun:Language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its
audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.

While it's true that it's on a individual basis that meaning is added,but objectively
you are just saying negative crap and you don't add anything to the topics
conversation.Without supporting your statements with ideas or examples on why you are right...then there is nothing to discuss.You are absolutely right when you said that it is a waste of time...but only your half.Making any posts at all was a waste, yet you felt comepelled to do it anyways?


Also i am sure your being sincere but i do not think that definition applies since the defintion is either or..and i already stated my intentions of which one i claimed you were objectively lacking. If you don't want summoner to change then why are you here? To shoot down every idea with unexplained statements of how you are right...and no one should question it?If it's so obvious it shouldn't be a problem to explain why.Of course you don't want to lay your logic on the table,it might end being used to support our ideas. I bet you would be happy if people stopped discussing things and just took your word for it.Since its such a nightmare to balance i guess we shouldn't even try right?
If i believed that developers would never change their minds i wouldn't be able to suggest many ideas at all, which is complete nonsense because for all we know we could easily inspire them with something new.Maybe the developers won't consider my ideas, but they will 100% for sure absolutely without a doubt never consider them if i NEVER share them.The chance will never be 0% if i do share them. Claiming otherwise is pure self-serving ignorance.
I will not limit my ideas just because people think its a bad idea or a waste of time.Start suggesting ideas or i will not take you seriously anymore.

I am only judging you by the content of your posts,i am not shallowly judging you by the color
of your skin or the clothes that you wear or even your name. I am not playing
games i am trying to convince you that you are not adding to the conversation, only
taking away from it.If you really consider all this a waste of time i will ignore
your posts in the future since you are probably not going to add anything to the discussion anyways as you already have proved by claiming that you are right without anything substantial other than "i said so... and somehow i know what the devs are going to do in the future.."

Hi, you must be new to MMORPGs.

http://camelotherald.wikia.com/wiki/Necromancer
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Summoner

It's been done before. It doesn't work out as well as you think it would because:

* If the pet dies, you lose all your damage, utility, etc.
* You're partially at the mercy ofthe pet's AI. There's been a few cases where a player will's command will be issued, but simply lost in the queue. Oh yeah, pet pathing generally sucks.
* Stats are a nightmare. If the game snaphots your stats when you summon, you can frontload and suddenly your pet is unstoppable. Or, your stats do nothing in which case your gear is irrelevant. (This one, admittedly isn't as much of a problem, since a game can simply use the player's stats for calculating damage).
* Tethering. If the pet gets tethered, but the the game can't generate a path to you, it will probably despawn. Opps.
* Healing - healers now have to pay attention to your pet as well as you, since your pet is damage. Sure, you have may have a healing ability as well, but people have a tendency to tunnel at the worst possible moments and suddenly, the pet is dead.

The most successful pet classes have always had a portion of the player's damage come from the player.

First of all, no, i am not new to mmo's. Just because you don't agree with someone's idea or you don't think it will work doesn't mean that they are new or wrong. Also..you have to do more than just post links, you are not citing a source...you are just giving general information out.No where does any of your bullets directly refer to or use the links information in any way to make a point.

You can easily see the flaw in your logic if you tried to take a step back and look at things from both sides and tried to find solutions to your own points.

1.Summons only take 2 seconds to cast, they can make the casting time probably even shorter if they wanted to make the class even more pet focused. You would not be that gimp at all since you can already easily replace your pets even if they do die..they only take 2 seconds to cast. Also who says i want all your DD or DOT spells to completely dissapear? Yes maybe they should be nerfed or maybe your pet will get 1 to stack with yours(while you get 1 taken away) ,but i do not think your role should not have anything to cast at all. Also this game has cross class skills and you can easily add more utility/damage to your class no matter what, you will never really Lack utility or damage...ever...regardless of how your main class/job abilities change.Missing your pet for a few seconds won't cripple or under-power your class.

2.Add new abilities that make sense for the pets AI's game-play. Like add an ability in where your pet teleports right next to your highlighted target when you use an offensive spell/ability that is pet based, or just simply depending on where your pet is the command will be more general like the ability enkindle so they would do a ranged or melee attack that is similar in effect and damage.Also have a warp ability that allows your pet to instantly be by your side. All telegraphed attacks take a second or 2 to cast so you would have more than enough time to use it. Also even if this ability doesn't exist you can always resummon easily.

3.How about the pets stats are always the same based on your class level?We cannot just assume that the game will gitch for everything and that's why we shouldn't bother.That logic can apply to almost anything...it's ludicrous your assuming that SE will somehow not program the pets correctly. How are pets damage and stats currently done? Couldn't they just use the system that already exists? What about chocobo's? Don't they have their own personal level up system already? Why couldn't they use a similar level up system for pets? In the end stats being a "nightmare" doesn't help SE at all and nor do they will take that into account when creating content.

4.Why assume that pets will get stuck...why assume they wouldn't add an ability in like pet warp to hostile target or other things that happen automatically when using abilities? Everything you say is fear based, or assumption based.You fear that pets will get stuck or your assume there will be no way to easily fix it in time. You don't even try figure any solutions out.

5.There is already an ability arcanists have to heal their pets with a HOT. Why not add a burst of healing to the ability that is already there? If the pet dies, why not just assume you can easily recast it in like literally 2 seconds? Doesn't seem to be that bad at all. The only real thing it's costing you is mana and 2-3 seconds of your time.Not saying bad situations can't go down during that, however, if you have abilities that protect your pet or to heal your pet then you won't have to worry about losing it. If you pet plays a bigger role than what will it matter if the most of your damage is DOT anyways you will obviously have the extra time to use more pet based abilities. The worst case screnario is if you have no mana and your pet dies, in which case it is probably your fault anyways for not having enough supportive items or gear to boost your MP. Mp regens very fast in game anyways.There has to be some downsides to pets if you suck at it, otherwise it might just be overpowered as you said.

6.I do not deny that summoners should have some independent abilities from their pet, i never said they shouldn't. My main problem throughout this entire thread is the aesthetic STYLE of the class. I think personally removing the pet from the equation entirely from the new ideas is ideal. As in summoning ifrit to do a single attack then dissapear or shiva comes and casts enblizzard on everyone then goes away. It will still have the flavor of summoning creatures without having to deal with "tethering" or the simple way of saying it...connection issues. They will become just normal abilities you can cast at any time.All the while giving summoners a unique role. Majority of the abilities can be utility and they can be the only class that has expensive AOE dmg spells for every element.Wind damage is DOT based...so is thunder. You would actually have nukes for these spells from summoner which would give it a unique role instead of overshadowing anyone else.

The downside of these aoe DMG abilities would be that they are expensive and/or they can only be used as a limit breaks and/or that they have long cool downs so they are not as efficient as black mage in terms of nuking but still offer something for enemies that black mage cannot exploit for burst damage.Another alternative is to have three passive abilities you can cast that can determine which type of ability the summon or primal will use(aoe,single target,utility) and when you use one of the primals you can have them all on a local timer that makes your summons unavailable so when you use shiva you would have to wait a few mins for all other as well...THEN you can use ifrit. On top of everything else you will still have your carby/egis to help tank/solo or w.e AND you can also still throw DOT up. And before you scream overpowered you can always balance the DOT of each class individually by nerfing the DOT spells and adding new ones for your summons and adding passive abilities for scholar that bring it back up to if not better than pre-nerf.In this way summons are used as a powerful buff or ability every so often, and you do not have to worry about path finding issues or that the summon will become useless if it dies etc. You can still have the flavor of summoning while keeping it at "perfect dodge" level where it takes a while to come back...but is extremely useful.

Many jobs already share roles with each other, instead of having summoner as pure damage we can make them a bit better than that but they would still have to choose and plan with other party members on what they want with the long cool down timers.Maybe the non aoe abilities won't be as heavy on cool down timers, or the AOE attacks will be limit break exclusives.

[Delily]

Not fear based, based on the fact I have played aforementioned classes and had those issues. And seriously, tl;dr. I hate being crit by a wall o' text on an mmo forum.

[Madoka]

Sustain is a pretty crappy heal anything that isnt Titan-egi
Any burst healings will take a fair bit of MP and probably have a cooldown
Pets do not currently show up on anybody's party list but the owners. Healers will have no idea how the pet is doing as it eats damage. This was a pretty big issue back when Garuda Ex was new, egis got murdered pretty fast by windburn from the falling feathers. Even now in shiva they can get murdered by frostbite after about 50%.

They aren't going to completely rework the class no matter how much you or akiza campaign for it, nor how many walls of text you type up.

[Knives]

"Yes"

I don't think the current Summoner job is the way Summoner should be, when I consider previous Final Fantasy games. Personally, I think the current form of Arcanist/Summoner should be changed to Mechanist, and just change the Egi's into magitek turrets. Mechanist lore could make it a (new?) Job from Garlond Ironworks, this game is supposed to be ever evolving after all. I would recommend making Scholar it's own thing, and having it in place of Limsa's current Arcanist, being a healer from the start.

Summoner should be, in my humble opinion, a class that summons an avatar of the actual primal. I would go so far as to make it play like a shape-shifter almost, where summoning puts you in control of whichever primal or similar being you summon (Like Final Fantasy X, but instead of the entire party disappearing, only the Summoner does).

[dday3six]

1.Summons only take 2 seconds to cast, they can make the casting time probably even shorter if they wanted to make the class even more pet focused. You would not be that gimp at all since you can already easily replace your pets even if they do die..they only take 2 seconds to cast. Also who says i want all your DD or DOT spells to completely dissapear? Yes maybe they should be nerfed or maybe your pet will get 1 to stack with yours(while you get 1 taken away) ,but i do not think your role should not have anything to cast at all. Also this game has cross class skills and you can easily add more utility/damage to your class no matter what, you will never really Lack utility or damage...ever...regardless of how your main class/job abilities change.Missing your pet for a few seconds won't cripple or under-power your class.

No, it take 6 seconds to cast. It can be interrupted, and it takes a about 1.5 seconds before the pet starts attacking again, assuming you didn't have it set to obey. Which you in most situations should. So have you played a Summoner before, cause your Arcanist is only level 15. Have you an alt that you've played any content with a dps check? Cause yeah there are times when not attacking for even 2 seconds can cause wipes...