An idea for Summoner's Enkindle

[Lavieh]

Fireweaving

Please no, pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeee no.

I agree that most classes have a low floor but high ceiling though, MNK and SMN being the exceptions as their Floors are relatively high but their ceilings are pretty low.

[Tex_Mex]

So if every class needs to be able to bring something to the table, lets do a quick comparison:
Bard: MP/TP regen + ranged silence
BLM: Massive AoE damage
Ninja: Goad + 10% party dmg buff (10 sec)
Monk: Dragon Kick + highest ST damage
DRG: 10% archer dps buff
SMN: Eye for an Eye, Virus + in combat res

So looking at this list, there are a couple things I want to highlight

[Tex_Mex]

1) There is no ranged dps with great single target dps ability. I agree ranged should not compete with melee in terms of raw dps numbers, but I would love to see summoner get a buff to single target damage so that they can at least bring that over the AoE focused black mage anyways.

2) Summoner utility is crap. EfaE and Virus are shared with scholar anyways so someone else has access to them. And the in combat res is the only major utility option that completely destroys dps output since the mana cost is so massive. Plus final coil now has a ton of mechanics that punish dying anyways so it is not even useable.

3) DRG need some serious love in the utility department. Wont go more into this because it is a SMN thread

[Tex_Mex]

So what I would like to see for summoner is this:

1) Rework their utility completely. Give them something that scholar cant already do better. Hrm maybe a second class with a consistent int debuff so monk is not the ONLY one.

2) Allow their in combat raise to be free mana cost. Obviously this cannot be given to scholars. This wont help with final coil, but it will help the ridiculous mana problems that are currently destroying the class.

3) Work on SMN mana issues. This could be accomplished in a number of cool ways. My personal pick would be to grant fester a 50% chance to make the next energy drain cost no aetherflow stack. This would go a long ways towards helping stabilize the class dps in long fight situations

4) SMN being a DoT based class should have strong ST dps. It should be the strongest ranged dps in ST situations. We already have the AoE king BLM and the strong support Bard, why not throw SMN a bone. It should still be 5% lower than monk dps output though, so that monk does not lose their main benefit.

[Tex_Mex]

One last thing that I did not mention is that SQEnix needs to make spell speed better for summoners. Currently, the shared BLM/SMN 120/130 gear is riddled with Spell Speed and it is far and away the worst stat for SMN since it does not affect DoT damage.

Easy fix, allow spell speed to increase the DoT damage frequency. Or if they really cannot change the 3 second tick time. Allow spell speed to give a corresponding increase to damage done by DoT abilities. Like a 5% spell speed stat would increase bio damage from 35 potency per tick to 36.75 potency per tick. That would help a ton for making the ridiculous issues with shared gear less noticeable.

Or they could just give BLM and SMN 2 different sets of gear, but this would require more dev time i think.

[ViviAnimus]

I actually agree that SMN should have higher ST damage. However, the only place in which your AoE rotation as a BLM is half decent is in T12 (end raiding). You can't even AoE too much to make sure stuff doesn't die too soon and you have to LB. Summoner Bane is probably very potent, so increasing dot damage would also increase Bane to certain hights and that is a problem.
If you were to up the SMN damage, you should increase the potency of Ruin I and the Pet damage. That's all that is needed.

[Dyvid]

Hmm, I would say yea and no at the same time. Instead of adding this to current why not adding it to new egis; Levi, Ramuh, Shiva? We don't need new pets but using them as a summon to produce this effect could work just as well. All three share the same cooldown of 60s. Diamond Dust = Defense, Judgement Bolt = Attack DPS, Tidal Wave = Spell DPS.

[ShaolinMike]

Hmm, I would say yea and no at the same time. Instead of adding this to current why not adding it to new egis; Levi, Ramuh, Shiva? We don't need new pets but using them as a summon to produce this effect could work just as well. All three share the same cooldown of 60s. Diamond Dust = Defense, Judgement Bolt = Attack DPS, Tidal Wave = Spell DPS.

Doing this would change the entire way that summons in this game work, unless you're talking about only doing it for the new egis, in which you're talking about summons working two different ways in the same game. Not gonna happen.

[Dyvid]

Doing this would change the entire way that summons in this game work, unless you're talking about only doing it for the new egis, in which you're talking about summons working two different ways in the same game. Not gonna happen.

Yes just the new egi and also would you prefer then to just replace the ifrit, garuda, and titan then? How else do you see them adding new egi's into the mix?

[ShaolinMike]

Yes just the new egi and also would you prefer then to just replace the ifrit, garuda, and titan then? How else do you see them adding new egi's into the mix?

I don't want the new to replace the old, I just want them to be reworked where they each have more defined roles. Each one should have enough purpose to where no single egi is used for ALL the content. I'm so sick of seeing yellow birds flying around whenever a SMN is in the group. I like the fact that Ifrit has become as useful as Garuda, if not moreso, in certain situations.