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

[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.

[Sunako]

Pretty hard imagine what that "pet job" is supposed 2 be? I could summon monsters that cover half of your screen? I have not played previous ff games so I do not know what that "iconic summoner" is but it probably not fit the mmo game at all. Dot job idea is pretty nice and I like that aetherflow system we currently have. Almost all mechanic and rotations what we have is not based by rng and procs. In wow almost all caster classes have some kind of rng based procs. It is probably pretty hard build interesting caster job without rng and procs.

[Ardan]

Snip.

Summoning in past FF's have generally involved summoning a creature, sitting through 30 seconds to 1-2 minutes, (not kidding) of attack animations and then actually seeing the damage. This is coupled with either a huge MP cost or a state of vulnerability. Unfortunately summons are just phased out in the latter portions of the game, because it takes so much MP to use and just aren't efficient for killing things. Ironically black magic gets the job done much quicker, cheaper to use to boot.

It was only until FF10 that summons were controllable. Fun to use, sure. But they were borderline useless in the latter half of the game. FF11 had SMN as a class as well and it was a humongous letdown. Weak, inefficient and really only one niche skill. Summoner isn't really iconic in any way.

[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.

[Dyne_Fellpool]

Its fun to speculate on what they could do with the SMN class. (here is what I'd do)

But really, it is doubtful any meaningful changes will be made before the expansion.

[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.

[Sen_Terrechant]

Summoning in past FF's have generally involved summoning a creature, sitting through 30 seconds to 1-2 minutes, (not kidding) of attack animations and then actually seeing the damage. This is coupled with either a huge MP cost or a state of vulnerability. Unfortunately summons are just phased out in the latter portions of the game, because it takes so much MP to use and just aren't efficient for killing things. Ironically black magic gets the job done much quicker, cheaper to use to boot.

It was only until FF10 that summons were controllable. Fun to use, sure. But they were borderline useless in the latter half of the game. FF11 had SMN as a class as well and it was a humongous letdown. Weak, inefficient and really only one niche skill. Summoner isn't really iconic in any way.

Whaat? Aparently youve never seen the Summon LB train wreck bosses in the endgame.

[Ardan]

Whaat? Aparently youve never seen the Summon LB train wreck bosses in the endgame.

In which FF? Certain summons are exceptions like Knights of the Round, Hades, Doomtrain, Cerberus and Eden I guess. That's out of the hundreds of summons available. I can't really say FF10's summons were particularly useful. Unless it's against the Dark Magus Sisters or Dark Bahamut where you pretty much need a meat shield to take the ultimate attack. That, or just use Rikku's insanely overpowered Mix overdrive.

I can't think of any instance where using summons would kill things faster late game over other methods.

[Staris]

People who underestimate the strength of a battle ressurect on a dps class for progression are...... insane.

[Akiza]

In which FF? Certain summons are exceptions like Knights of the Round, Hades, Doomtrain, Cerberus and Eden I guess. That's out of the hundreds of summons available. I can't really say FF10's summons were particularly useful. Unless it's against the Dark Magus Sisters or Dark Bahamut where you pretty much need a meat shield to take the ultimate attack. That, or just use Rikku's insanely overpowered Mix overdrive. I can't think of any instance where using summons would kill things faster late game over other methods.

I can't think of a single Final Fantasy game where players only controlled one character either. In single player Final Fantasy games players controlled five players and the summons were as strong as a player character. The reality is no Final Fantasy game gave players a boss level summon generally the Summoner's summon monster looked like the boss summon but was only as potent as the player character.

I can't think of any instance where other methods killed things faster over using summons.