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

[Delily]

FFX's Aeons are huge awe-inspiring powerful creatures while their summoners are just people with weird dress sense.

When you summoned them, the entire party disappeared. That wouldn't quite work in FFXIV. Also, Yuna herself was a white mage, and ultimately, the only thing the summons were good at was burst damage in boss fights when Yuna was in Overdrive. Once she got Holy and her ultimate weapon, there was almost no reason to summon unless you needed sacrificial lambs. So much for awe-inspiring.

Summoner's summoning huge Demi Gods to aide them in battle for us is the one constant in the Final Fantasy series. I don't think the Summoner and Arcanist should be based on the Warlock model because it's flawed and unpopular at higher levels look at what happened after WoW Cataclysm Expansion the Warlock got destroyed and their population declined because other classes became vastly more powerful and easier to use doing the level cap raise.

The issue is DoT based classes at higher levels require an insane amount of skill to even get close to or the same amount of damage as other dps classes which happens in every MMO.

The only time a summoner's summons have been demi-gods has been FFXI.

And have you ever played a warlock, much less WoW itself? Warlocks have never been a popular class for a myriad of reasons (namely in 1.0 they were bad), but the core design of both Affliction and Destruction is solid. Demonology was unfocused until the devs settled on Metamorphosis as the key mechanic for the spec. The roller coaster warlocks are on has always been the fact that WoW strives to balance the game for both PvE and PvP. The legendary "Fear + DoT" combo is great in PvE, but not so much in PvP because people lose control and /ragequit.

[Delily]

On a side note, I'm not particularly happy with SMN nor ACN being Warlock-type classes.

Warlock's design is flawed IMHO, it even got overhauled last expansion and is still being tweaked.

I can honestly say you're wrong. You may not like it, but's it not flawed. The MoP revamp was done to help streamline the class and get rid of some of the clunkier mechanics, but speaking as someone who has played all 3 specs extensively since 2.0, the only flaw of the class is that Blizzard keeps trying to balance them for PvE and PvP. All 3 specs are solid despite the roller coaster ride that all classes go through.

[Soralis]

delily don't look at it literary, when someone says like yuna, they probably mean summons that yuna has, not her entire character and battlefield things, so no he probably ment for party not to disappear, like they don't disappear in ffxi, and warlock was good in wow, but personally i don't want summoner to be compared to warlock, yes they both are a dot class, but i would want summoner to be more final fantasy-ish and not a plain warlock class from other games

[Delily]

delily don't look at it literary, when someone says like yuna, they probably mean summons that yuna has, not her entire character and battlefield things, so no he probably ment for party not to disappear, like they don't disappear in ffxi, and warlock was good in wow, but personally i don't want summoner to be compared to warlock, yes they both are a dot class, but i would want summoner to be more final fantasy-ish and not a plain warlock class from other games

When people say they want an FF summoner, what they really mean is they want an FFXI summoner. Other than summoning, the role and abilities of summoners have changed from game to game. Also, when people say warlock, they really mean Affliction warlock, completely ignoring Demonology and Destruction. DoTs play into a warlocks spec, yes, but the accurate description of them would be the "enemies of all life" since they are the only class that uses all 3 of the "forbidden" spell lines in WoW's lore.

[dday3six]

...personally i don't want summoner to be compared to warlock, yes they both are a dot class, but i would want summoner to be more final fantasy-ish and not a plain warlock class from other games

Summoner is rarely represented the same in any FF though. However the biggest hurdle is; how could a single-player version of Summoner work in an MMO with fast paced, dodge heavy, and mechanic-driven combat.

[Bishop81]

When you summoned them, the entire party disappeared. That wouldn't quite work in FFXIV.

No need for anyone to disappear. The summon will just be how the SMN does damage/tank.

However the biggest hurdle is; how could a single-player version of Summoner work in an MMO with fast paced, dodge heavy, and mechanic-driven combat.

The SMN dodges as normal with various abilities given to him to keep the summon alive.

[BloodPact]

No need for anyone to disappear. The summon will just be how the SMN does damage/tank.

And if the egi is KOed there goes 100% of your damage, followed by any hope of Summoners having spots in any decent party. Look at how lots of people are using Black Mage instead of Summoner on the Last Coil just because of the MP issues we have there, which isn't nearly as bad as the vulnerability we'd have with the bulk of the damage coming from the egi.

The SMN dodges as normal with various abilities given to him to keep the summon alive.

The only ability given to the summoner is Sustain, and that is not enough for what you're proposing. They'd have to make pets basically invincible.

[Bishop81]

I can honestly say you're wrong. You may not like it, but's it not flawed.

Look at pets.

Every warlock can summon the 4 basic pets. But how many are actually useful? Blizzard has been trying to make all of them "viable". Tying each to a spec. Untying them from specs, giving each a "role". etc. They tried it all.

In the end it's down to "one pet" per specific situations depending on the state of the game. There is really no choice, it's an illusion.

High resummoning cost = can't switch mid combat = trapped with one pet during combat = player picking the best for their situation

You effectively only have one pet.

The cute part is, you don't have "one pet", you have many and they all have to work with the class's abilities. But close integration with class abilities is almost impossible with so many pets. Frost Mages that have only one pet arguably has the best pet integration.

FFXIV replicated the problem down to the last screw ...

[Bishop81]

And if the egi is KOed there goes 100% of your damage, followed by any hope of Summoners having spots in any decent party. Look at how lots of people are using Black Mage instead of Summoner on the Last Coil just because of the MP issues we have there, which isn't nearly as bad as the vulnerability we'd have with the bulk of the damage coming from the egi.



The only ability given to the summoner is Sustain, and that is not enough for what you're proposing. They'd have to make pets basically invincible.

Yes ... lets apply the new idea in isolation, assuming no changes to the Job's supporting abilities ...

>.>

I have already said, summons should be instant but sap MP as long as they are out and when using the summon's abilities. The SMN's job is manage their mana - and of course they will be given tools to regen it.

[Akiza]

Dot Based Jobs are mechanically broken and Underpowered at higher levels and have a low margin of error compared to other classes as well as mediocre damage for a lot of effort that's why they are unpopular. Pet Based Jobs are Over Powered and are easier to use from a mechanical stand point and easier to balance.
SE made the Summoner a DoT Based Job that is easy to play on paper but since DoT Jobs have a low margin of error and are mechanically broken they are hard to play in End Game Encounters. If SE made the Summoner a Pet Based Job it would be easier to use because they would have a high margin of error.