Can someone give me an in-depth explanation why Summoner is arguably the worst DPS?

[Wizarus]

Akiza, along with a lot of other players, has this grand vision of what Summoner should be and it differs from what SE wants it to be. It's fun to speculate on how to improve our class, even imagine new abilities, but the truth is, we, the players, have no way of testing any changes we suggest nor do I think would SE devote time and money to coding and testing them. We don't even know if SE is even going to give summoner some tweaks before Heavensward. Well, SE certainly is not speaking to it's NA playerbase.

What exactly is SMN suppose to be then? Someone in another SMN thread said SMN is just Arcanist with Fester, and that's more or less what SMN is. Looking at SCH, all 5 abilities are unique and the pets changing completely with different abilities seperates it from Arcanist.

[Romsca]

What exactly is SMN suppose to be then? Someone in another SMN thread said SMN is just Arcanist with Fester, and that's more or less what SMN is. Looking at SCH, all 5 abilities are unique and the pets changing completely with different abilities seperates it from Arcanist.

If that's how someone wants to see the current smn class that's how they see it. Are we discussing lore of the class or the gameplay mechanics? Could scholar do with out the pet if we boost the heals? If we didn't have the pets with acn/smn/sch would the class still be viable? I think so. The class called summoner, without the pets, is a multi target sustain damage dealer. It shines when there are multiple monsters that, for whatever reason, can not be grouped together, prohibiting the use of abilities like flare, fire 2, holy, rain of death, etc. Currently we do not have a lot of content catering to summoners strength, which I add is the weakness of the other classes, a black mage can't be in two places. This is what we have and I have strong doubts we will see any redesign of the class mechanics.

Let's do this. Remove the pets, change Arcanist to Poisoner, Summoner to Arcanist and come up with 3 new job skills to replace summon 3/spur/enkindle. Radical enough for everyone?

Or even better, next producer Q&A event everyone go pester SE with questions on what their plans are for summoner.

[Akiza]

If that's how someone wants to see the current smn class that's how they see it. Are we discussing lore of the class or the gameplay mechanics? Could scholar do with out the pet if we boost the heals? If we didn't have the pets with acn/smn/sch would the class still be viable? I think so. The class called summoner, without the pets, is a multi target sustain damage dealer. It shines when there are multiple monsters that, for whatever reason, can not be grouped together, prohibiting the use of abilities like flare, fire 2, holy, rain of death, etc. Currently we do not have a lot of content catering to summoners strength, which I add is the weakness of the other classes, a black mage can't be in two places. This is what we have and I have strong doubts we will see any redesign of the class mechanics. Let's do this. Remove the pets, change Arcanist to Poisoner, Summoner to Arcanist and come up with 3 new job skills to replace summon 3/spur/enkindle. Radical enough for everyone?

Or even better, next producer Q&A event everyone go pester SE with questions on what their plans are for summoner.

Summoner is a polarizing class in this game it's divided into to camps some are saying it doesn't feel like a Summoner some saying they need to make adjustments to mp and potency buff.

SE didn't intend to design a Summoner they wanted to design a multi target damage over time class combine it with a pet class and call it a Summoner. For the people that wanted a dot class it's fine but for the people who voted for the Summoner it wasn't fine they felt ripped off because they wanted Pet job and got a DoT job instead.

They won't redesign the Summoner but I do think they'll add more spells that make it feel more like a Summoner.

[Wizarus]

snip

Oh come on. I'm not saying completely destroy the class. But the borderline useless Tri-DIsaster, a moderately powerful attack that you will only see every 5 minutes, another Rouse with a longer cooldown, a pet "change" that is more or less the same one you had with slightly more DPS, and a brand new pet...that might as well have no skills other than it's basic attack. That's not going to cut it. Fester is good and a start, but that alone isn't seperating the 2 classes.

[Romsca]

Oh come on. I'm not saying completely destroy the class. But the borderline useless Tri-DIsaster, a moderately powerful attack that you will only see every 5 minutes, another Rouse with a longer cooldown, a pet "change" that is more or less the same one you had with slightly more DPS, and a brand new pet...that might as well have no skills other than it's basic attack. That's not going to cut it. Fester is good and a start, but that alone isn't seperating the 2 classes.

Well how much more different do you want the job to be from the class? Isn't paladin just gladiator with shield oath and hallowed ground? Isn't white mage just conjurer with a few extra abilities? If summoner was a tank class instead of damage would that be enough of a difference? Scholar is a dps>healer conversion so of course it's going to be different.

You asked what summoner is. I said what I think it and arcanist is. Right now, bar the "interview" with Yoshi that's floating around, we have no "official" word that SE is doing anything regarding summoner. Players have been calling for redesigns of abilities to the whole class. I have been asking for some tweaks that are simple and fast to make so we wouldn't have to wait for an expansion with new abilities that might just be band aids to the summoner issue.

As for tri-disaster, does damage from our dots break it? Are adds in boss fights immune to it? 20 second bind could help keep an add off a healer till a tank can pick it up. I've thought about swift casting it in a few SCoB turn 2 runs when the OT isn't on top of the first three adds. If it was instant cast instead it could be a very good crowd control utility for summoner.

[Akiza]

Well how much more different do you want the job to be from the class? Isn't paladin just gladiator with shield oath and hallowed ground? Isn't white mage just conjurer with a few extra abilities? If summoner was a tank class instead of damage would that be enough of a difference? Scholar is a dps>healer conversion so of course it's going to be different. You asked what summoner is. I said what I think it and arcanist is. Right now, bar the "interview" with Yoshi that's floating around, we have no "official" word that SE is doing anything regarding summoner. Players have been calling for redesigns of abilities to the whole class. I have been asking for some tweaks that are simple and fast to make so we wouldn't have to wait for an expansion with new abilities that might just be band aids to the summoner issue.

As for tri-disaster, does damage from our dots break it? Are adds in boss fights immune to it? 20 second bind could help keep an add off a healer till a tank can pick it up. I've thought about swift casting it in a few SCoB turn 2 runs when the OT isn't on top of the first three adds. If it was instant cast instead it could be a very good crowd control utility for summoner.

Here is the problem with the gladiator and conjure analogy. The Gladiator is an initiate of the Paladin and the Conjuror is an initiate of the White Mage. The Evoker is the initiate of the Summoner not the Arcanist. The Arcanist is the initiate of the Saboteur.

[Skeith-Adeline]

"I can't think of a single Final Fantasy game where players only controlled one character either."

Lightning Returns... if you count it as a FF.

[YanderePrincess]

"I can't think of a single Final Fantasy game where players only controlled one character either."

Lightning Returns... if you count it as a FF.

FF7 Dirge of Cerberus, FF7 Crisis Core, Kingdom Hearts . . .

[Romsca]

Here is the problem with the gladiator and conjure analogy. The Gladiator is an initiate of the Paladin and the Conjuror is an initiate of the White Mage. The Evoker is the initiate of the Summoner not the Arcanist. The Arcanist is the initiate of the Saboteur.

What game are you talking about? I don't remember Evoker and Saboteur being in FF14; ARR. And frankly, the previous post mine was too was about how summoner is just arcanist with fester yet scholar is very different. In which I was saying that no other job beyond scholar had as drastic of changes as scholar from arcanist, and that came from the fact scholar is a heal class and arcanist is damage.

I said it earlier, Akiza, you, like many others, have this vision of what the class should be. Sadly Square Enix did not hire you or the others to design the class. Now we can continue talking about cool, and often overpowered, abilities and changes to the class but most likely Square Enix is not going to make those. The original post of this thread was why, in detail, is summoner considered the worst dps class? So far, all I have seen is that we have mana management issues, poor gear itemization, utility skills that are shared cross other classes thus lessen their uniqueness when used by summoner, pets lack a unique feel and play style within our class and seem more glorious dot, and not many burst/nuke type attacks.

[Natsuno]

Here is the problem with the gladiator and conjure analogy. The Gladiator is an initiate of the Paladin and the Conjuror is an initiate of the White Mage. The Evoker is the initiate of the Summoner not the Arcanist. The Arcanist is the initiate of the Saboteur.

And BLM is the initiate of RAV, SCH is the initiate of SYN, PLD is the initiate of SEN, WHM is the initiate of MED... wait a sec! We're playing FFXIII-4 and I didn't even know it! :O

Although I'm still confused as to why Evoker & SMN are there.... best scrap them both. ;p

Could you stop trying to twist other peoples words to fit your own adjenda please.

On topic: As Romsa said above. Gear itemisation, mana issues... tbh, it's been beaten to death in this tread already.