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

[Delily]

The had articles on why the Warlock from WoW was never popular. The Warlock didn't excel at anything and was mediocre in all areas. They had a low margin so it scared casual players away from it. Also the Warlock doesn't feel more powerful at higher level compared to other classes. SE replicated the same problems with the Summoner. The Summoner should be a Pet Based Job to have an Iconic Image. WoW Warlock has different tiers of Pets they have Minion Pets, Combat Pets and Guardian Pets while the Summoner only has one type of Pet. The only issue with the Warlock was it was the most hated class.

Warlocks also have 3 different specs that play differently. Affliction is only one third of the class. The number of pets they have is irrelevant, what matters is how well those pets fulfilled their designated roles. We're also getting more egis in 3.0, so this argument is nonsensical. Also, with regards to your claims about warlocks and power levels, they were mediocre in 1.0. They have been on the same roller coaster as every other class. Demonology traditionally lags behind the other 2 specs, but since 2.0, warlocks have held their except when Blizzard pulls out the nerf bat and hits them hard, which they do to every other class. Your argument that DoTs require more maintenance and offer little in return has some merit, but that doesn't mean the class design itself is broken, it's more a sign that Blizzard is trying to make WoW 2 games - a PvE and PvP one. Warlocks are more than capable of holding their own with damage.

The only iconic thing about summoners is that they have summoned. The summons have gone from fancy casting animations (FFV), to partial party members (FFX), to full fledged party members (FFXI). The version in FFXIV is nothing more than an iteration on that basic theme of summoning something and using it to attack. If you don't like it, that's fine, but sitting here trying to say the designers should do X simply because that is how X was done in the past is inane.

[Eggnook24]

Idea:

An ability to siphon entire party's mana (aether) by 75% to summon an almost full primal for crazy spike damage, sort of an additional limit break. They would have to time it strategically so healers and PLD won't be out of commission. That would definitely be "Strategy" as per the lore, and make parties want a SMN for very specific turns.

I'm sure there's possible issues with this idea, but it could strengthen team-oriented gameplay, while utilizing lore and the demand for more power from the Summoners out there.

Anyway, just an idea.

...nobody likes my idea? Wouldn't even be a rework of the job, and Akiza would stop posting all the time.

[Kyroc]

...nobody likes my idea? Wouldn't even be a rework of the job, and Akiza would stop posting all the time.

I dont think other classes, especially healers,would enjoy having their mana siphoned off

[Deliciou5]

...nobody likes my idea? Wouldn't even be a rework of the job, and Akiza would stop posting all the time.

Why would it take mana up? Why not use limit break bars only? SE has hinted that more class specific Limit breaks are coming in 3.0.

Warlocks also have 3 different specs that play differently. Affliction is only one third of the class. The number of pets they have is irrelevant, what matters is how well those pets fulfilled their designated roles. We're also getting more egis in 3.0, so this argument is nonsensical. Also, with regards to your claims about warlocks and power levels, they were mediocre in 1.0. They have been on the same roller coaster as every other class. Demonology traditionally lags behind the other 2 specs, but since 2.0, warlocks have held their except when Blizzard pulls out the nerf bat and hits them hard, which they do to every other class. Your argument that DoTs require more maintenance and offer little in return has some merit, but that doesn't mean the class design itself is broken, it's more a sign that Blizzard is trying to make WoW 2 games - a PvE and PvP one. Warlocks are more than capable of holding their own with damage.

The only iconic thing about summoners is that they have summoned. The summons have gone from fancy casting animations (FFV), to partial party members (FFX), to full fledged party members (FFXI). The version in FFXIV is nothing more than an iteration on that basic theme of summoning something and using it to attack. If you don't like it, that's fine, but sitting here trying to say the designers should do X simply because that is how X was done in the past is inane.

Whenever someone on this thread suggests that summoner should be like FF(insert#) i think it is implied that SE would translate those abilities or pets into the game using FFXIV's system. Saying FFXI or FFX wouldn't work is not even a argument since you are taking their ideas literally as if SE would literally take the exact coding from those games and apply it into FFXIV...at least that's what you appear to be thinking since you don't at all explain why it wouldn't work. FFXIV's battle system is not changing any time soon....so i don't really get your argument at all. I guess you just assume SE is stupid enough to not be able to balance new abilities that are more pet focused properly. It is my belief that SE had a limited amount of time to create arcanist/summoner and they wanted to get it done as soon as possible, therefore we got this half-assed version of summoner. It was the safe thing to do, rather than what they actually planned.

If we included FFXI's version of summoner it would translate basically to summoner having 1 or 2 extra cast-able abilities that would make their pet do damage exactly like enkindle does already. Pets already auto attack like in FFXI and summoners even have more control than they did over ffxi in terms of maneuvering your pet.

In all honesty the job wouldn't change that much in terms of game-play since summoner would still have a lot of it's abilities and they would probably get one new castable ability for a group buff to go along with enkindle. Enkindle and group buff would both be Blood pact rage/ward all over again. In the end pets would get more individual abilities for summoner to use, it wouldn't change the job that much just take a little extra to micromanaging of your pet. Honestly 1 extra ability to cast a buff that would last 30 mins really a big change? Are ffxiv and ffxi really that different in terms of micromanaging of pets?

Now if people want summons to cost mana ticks for having pets out... well.... i wouldn't exactly be for that unless pets really got a lot stronger, and i rather see just a chunk of mana cost per ability than a mana tic system like ffxi had.

The biggest change between FFXI and FFXIV is that ffxi had more individual abilities you could select for your pets when using blood pact. Having a few extra abilities for pets that you can choose wouldn't exactly be a bad thing, and according to the way FFXI worked all those abilities shared the same timer on that one ability.

I also don't buy the argument that if your pets dies you would lose significant dps , you just assume that SE would not add abilities in or balance stats to make pets more resilient so it would be up to the player's skill if the pet died or not. Add another ability like spur in and just have it increase def and Mdef significantly for a short time before a major AOE attack since most attacks are telegraphed out the arse in this game anyways.

Worst case scenario if your pet dies you just quickcast+summon, or SE would balance it to have shorter casting time for summoning...or you just wait those 6 seconds since pet dieing means your just a bad summoner and it is completely your fault since SE added in new utility/balance to make your pets more resilient.

You could still cast DOT's, however instead of casting ruin spells or shadow flare as much you would micromanage your pets a bit more and your single target attack damage would increase. In the end there is not a lot of fights that require AOE or even multiple bosses that require stacking DOT's on each, pets would not be changing target much at all anyways.

In the end your single target damage would increase a little bit and you wouldn't sacrifice your DOT's or any of your individual nukes while your waiting for your enkindle ability to recover from cooldown. However adding all this extra damage to 50 summoner would overpower it....however adding it to 60 summoner may not if other jobs get more powerful as well. I think we all know it is reasonable to assume that all jobs will get much more powerful at 60 let alone 70 or 80.

[dday3six]

*snip*

If the Pet was 70% of your DPS, and it died you'd lose 70% of your DPS for the time it takes for you to get the pet back online, assuming a minimum of 1s. Let's clarify that DPS mean Damage Per Second, and every second missed is a substantial loss. This is the biggest reason the pet is not responsible for a greater DPS percentage for SMN.

The Pet also has no auto-attacks. Yes it uses skills automatically, but auto-attacks in the context of FFXIV are something completely different.

I fully understand you have no interest in playing SMN as it currently exists however the divide between what you can read about a Job and what you can learn from actually playing it is pretty wide when you're suggesting how a Job should, could, and will play.

[Deliciou5]

If the Pet was 70% of your DPS, and it died you'd lose 70% of your DPS for the time it takes for you to get the pet back online, assuming a minimum of 1s. Let's clarify that DPS mean Damage Per Second, and every second missed is a substantial loss. This is the biggest reason the pet is not responsible for a greater DPS percentage for SMN.

The Pet also has no auto-attacks. Yes it uses skills automatically, but auto-attacks in the context of FFXIV are something completely different.

I fully understand you have no interest in playing SMN as it currently exists however the divide between what you can read about a Job and what you can learn from actually playing it is pretty wide when you're suggesting how a Job should, could, and will play.

Aren't you splitting hairs? My point still remains the same. Also why ignore the fact that i suggested that SE would balance it so pet would not die so easily and it would be up to skill of a summoner to keep it alive with new abilities?Isn't the whole point of pets is that it acts as an extra party member that you can revive WITHOUT weakness when stuff goes wrong?

If your pet dies with the new survival abilities then why would you deserve not to have your dps drop?

SE wouldn't use all of my ideas 1:1, they would find a way to implement it if they liked it. Not all my ideas need to be perfect for it to inspire SE to change up summoner a bit.

Just ignore the fact that my suggestion included having DOT's/ruin/shadowflare still as part of the job....ignore the survival abilities....ignore the potential DPS increase for entire party added buffs from pet that would only take a second to cast that would last long after pet died.

Ultimately you talk about DPS loss for even 1 second...however you would gain dps as well and as long as you were doing decent DPS that was balanced with everyone else even if stuff did go wrong because your pet did more damage. Why would it even matter if you lost a second or 2 because you failed to take care of your pet with instant cast survival abilities with local cool downs that wouldn't get in the way of your other abilities. Ultimately my idea puts the responsibility on the summoner to keep pet alive and a bad summoner would be a bad summoner.What MIGHT go wrong isn't a good excuse when you have abilities to stop it from dieing.

Why include pet at all if you are worried about your dps being gimped from pet dieing all the time? Currently pet does 30% damage, would you rather not have pet at all in it's current state because it might die? It is the same no matter what regardless if its a large portion or a small portion of damage, at least with my idea your pets would be more built for surviving.

[Bishop81]

The pets versus minion arguments is mechanics.

Well, we aren't really talking about pet vs minion, but pet vs summon.

Summons are a appear-do-their-job-then-disappear kind of thing. Frequently very powerful and summoned at considerable cost.

Pets are ... pets. Kind of like your dog. It follows you around and gives you a hand.

I think a lot of SMN players prefer the former.

Kind of pathetic that Egi damage < PC damage. Very least they should do an equal amount of damage, i.e. they are the SMN's total damage; for balanced reasons of course.

Carbuncles can be pets. They are cute, few would mind them hanging around. Primal-Egis are mini Primals ... those don't exactly have a good rep in Ezorea ... Feels even weirder when doing beast tribe quests. >.>

Either way, I don't foresee SE making huge changes - they could surprise us though. Personally I hope they at least add back Carbuncles to SMN - with reasonable Potency attacks of course.

[dday3six]

Aren't you splitting hairs? My point still remains the same.

No auto-attacks are completely different than skills. Look at any weapon. You'll see a stat for Auto-attack and Delay. There are skills which specific effect auto-attacks as well. You might be meaning that the Pet can automatically use skills but calling 'that' an auto-attack, is incorrect when there is a literal combat mechanic named auto-attack.

Isn't the whole point of pets is that it acts as an extra party member that you can revive WITHOUT weakness when stuff goes wrong?

Weakness is the 1m Debuff a PC gets when they are revived. No, having a pet will not make up for that. A Player is always meant to be greater than the Pet. However, I believe you meant without it negatively impacting a SMN/SCH's other duties, and in a small measure that is true. DOTs are also meant to do that. The caveat is however rarely will you see a SMN, SCH or WHM for that matter hardcast Resurrection or Raise. Swiftcast is almost exclusively how rez-ing is done. See Writer's Note

Also why ignore the fact that i suggested that SE would balance it so pet would not die so easily and it would be up to skill of a summoner to keep it alive with new abilities?

Just ignore the fact that my suggestion included having DOT's/ruin/shadowflare still as part of the job....ignore the survival abilities....ignore the potential DPS increase for entire party added buffs from pet that would only take a second to cast that would last long after pet died.

If your pet dies with the new survival abilities then why would you deserve not to have your dps drop?

Do you think you could Tank, Heal, and DPS all at the same time? Even for all their damage mitigation, Tanks cannot eat all damage coming their way. They have higher Defense stats, more HP, Defense Cooldowns, on top of a Healer's mitigation and HP restoration, as well at times some mitigation from DPS. Nevertheless they still must dodge some fight mechanics.

Since you cannot control the pet at 1:1 input, and there's a delay before the Pet will even execute commands. Increased survivability would need to be akin to invincibility. At that point balance has left the building. See Writer's Note

Ultimately you talk about DPS loss for even 1 second...however you would gain dps as well and as long as you were doing decent DPS that was balanced with everyone else even if stuff did go wrong because your pet did more damage. Why would it even matter if you lost a second or 2 because you failed to take care of your pet with instant cast survival abilities with local cool downs that wouldn't get in the way of your other abilities. Ultimately my idea puts the responsibility on the summoner to keep pet alive and a bad summoner would be a bad summoner.What MIGHT go wrong isn't a good excuse when you have abilities to stop it from dieing.

DPS literally means Damage Per Second. For DPS to be made up, there needs to be continual DPS at it's normal level on top of damage beyond that to make up for what is lost.

Your skills to keep the Pet alive would need to be god mode off GCD's on an extremely short CD. That is not a responsibility it's more like a cheat code. Hallowed Ground is not even 100% invincibility and it is on a 7m CD. See Writer's Note

Why include pet at all if you are worried about your dps being gimped from pet dieing all the time? Currently pet does 30% damage, would you rather not have pet at all in it's current state because it might die? It is the same no matter what regardless if its a large portion or a small portion of damage, at least with my idea your pets would be more built for surviving.

30% != 70% The concern is massive DPS loss, not just any DPS loss. No DPS has 100% uptime fight mechanics alone make that impossible. They are however concerned with squeezing out as much damage as possible, but yes at least your idea includes god mode, that it does. See Writer's Note

SE wouldn't use all of my ideas 1:1, they would find a way to implement it if they liked it. Not all my ideas need to be perfect for it to inspire SE to change up summoner a bit.

I'm not sure SE would be inclined to be inspired by anything you say with all the passive aggressive insults you slung at them of late. (Rushed, haphazard SMN and all) People tend to not respond positively to that sort of thing. Also if they don't have to directly implement your ideas why are you so concerned about me ignoring the increased survival skills?

Writer's Note

You continue to suggest ideas from limited scope, and as much as you want to pretend at is not an issue, that will not change that it is. Each See Writer's Note is an example of this. I am not trying to dissuade you from trying, I am trying to impress upon you how limited your scope actually is. You have clearly demonstrated minimum understanding of how Jobs function within their role, and how they interact with one another. How drastically fights change at end game and the fast paced nature of those encounters. Each Job is the sum of their whole, culminating at level 50. Your level 15 Arcanist, has barely scratched the surface of that journey..

[BloodPact]

Well, we aren't really talking about pet vs minion, but pet vs summon.

Summons are a appear-do-their-job-then-disappear kind of thing. Frequently very powerful and summoned at considerable cost.

Pets are ... pets. Kind of like your dog. It follows you around and gives you a hand.

I think a lot of SMN players prefer the former.

Kind of pathetic that Egi damage < PC damage. Very least they should do an equal amount of damage, i.e. they are the SMN's total damage; for balanced reasons of course.

Carbuncles can be pets. They are cute, few would mind them hanging around. Primal-Egis are mini Primals ... those don't exactly have a good rep in Ezorea ... Feels even weirder when doing beast tribe quests. >.>

Either way, I don't foresee SE making huge changes - they could surprise us though. Personally I hope they at least add back Carbuncles to SMN - with reasonable Potency attacks of course.

Like it's been explained, FFXIV's Summoner and its summons are as valid and as Final Fantasyish as those in the other titles. For example: I very much dislike the mechanical summons in FFXIII, but I'd be lying to myself if I were to say those weren't really summons, they were more like machines because in that iteration they don't really stick to the core design of each of the avatars.

Summons, pets, minions, subcharacters, egi, mini-primals, little eikons, avatars, chibbys... Whichever word you are using refers to the same thing. OKing Carbuncle as a pet but not other summons is 100% your opinion. The fact is both are pets and both are summoned. Not saying you can't create your own extra lore to enjoy the game more, but for the sake of discussion it's better we stick to the facts.

And I think things will change. I see them making quite a few changes to Summoner (and the rest of the jobs at Heavensward release). With the addition of two(+?) new egi, there's an even bigger need to look at their balance. Things like shifting the Contagion effect to the Summoner as a skill/spell instead of an egi ability I'd say is likely; I don't see, however, radical changes that will change Summoner's style by a large margin.

[Delily]

Whenever someone on this thread suggests that summoner should be like FF(insert#) i think it is implied that SE would translate those abilities or pets into the game using FFXIV's system. Saying FFXI or FFX wouldn't work is not even a argument since you are taking their ideas literally as if SE would literally take the exact coding from those games and apply it into FFXIV...at least that's what you appear to be thinking since you don't at all explain why it wouldn't work.

First, I did explain why it wouldn't work, go look back. Second, the problem with your claim is that you seem to imply SE didn't look at the previous iterations when they designed the FFXIV summoner. They did, they rejected it, and the gave out explanations why. As dday3six's writer's note states, you keep looking at things from a limited scope, not seeing the whole picture. Before you start trying to "inspire" SE, you should realize that a good number of your suggestions were rejected by the team when they made the original implementation of the summoner.