New to the game. Do summoners become actual summoners later or in the expansion?

[Lorielle]

Enter a state where summoning a full sized Avatar is possible. Let it drain your MP as long as you remain in this state. Be mindful that any attacks you do with your summoned avatar will also drain MP. Or do away with that and let the summoned state last about 10 seconds. Cooldown 2-3 minutes. Summoning full sized Avatars do require a lot of Aether as mentioned by lore, but no one said it couldn't be done for a few seconds. MP draining can signify the 'loss of Aether'

I don't know. Random passing thought.

[Nutz]

Enter a state where summoning a full sized Avatar is possible. Let it drain your MP as long as you remain in this state. Be mindful that any attacks you do with your summoned avatar will also drain MP. Or do away with that and let the summoned state last about 10 seconds. Cooldown 2-3 minutes. Summoning full sized Avatars do require a lot of Aether as mentioned by lore, but no one said it couldn't be done for a few seconds. MP draining can signify the 'loss of Aether'

I don't know. Random passing thought.

My only concern with this is the ridiculous size of the full sized avatars (primals). I've turned up dead due to no visibility during meteor before and this could be a lot worse (also you can turn off flashy LB effects, but where's the fun in that anyway?). Also I'm assuming this would do substantial damage so the class would have to be 'rebalanced', unless it were part of the new rebalancing anyway (since lots of things will change from 50 to 60). Well, it would certainly make a lot of SMNs happy to have big flashy spike damage available to them even if only periodically (I don't think draining all of their MP would work the way Flare does for BLM because of mp management differences, but the 10 second idea could work).

[Alberel]

With job-specific limit break adjustments inbound we may at least get to see SMN doing some more traditional summoning with a big hitting AOE burst attack using their limit break. A small consolation for those of us that would rather see more of a focus on the pet instead of the summoner though...

[Lorielle]

My only concern with this is the ridiculous size of the full sized avatars (primals).

A lot of people refer to the huge avatars whenever something is being summoned. Honestly, SE can tailor it to be smaller scale. People just want to see the actual summon, not some Egi 24/7. I mean, if we have Eos and Selene with Egi's here partially, what's the harm in an actual Avatar? Depending on their attacks as well, it shouldn't "get in the way" of anything. Meteor is different because that's just a blinding big flash. It can be tweaked accordingly, as I said it was just a passing thought. I wouldn't drain MP entirely like BLM with Flare because SMN doesn't have a efficient way of getting MP back. That's why I said MP Ticks according to how long you keep the avatar out. You can -opt- to dismiss early, but that just goes according to your MP Pool.

[Zohar_Lahar]

In Final Fantasy XI Summoners gained the ability to summon the firsts six full sized Avatars in the 1st Expansion Rise of Zilart.

Which were totally impractical due to Perpetuation Costs and the minute long cooldown on Blood Pacts. Only silver lining were the support abilities....something I'd like them to add to SMN in this game.

[SoloWingMetatron]

For the new egis it seems like it shouldn't be too difficult to give them more impactful attacks (like judgement bolt) that have a longer cast time and/ or cooldown. I don't see them removing bio, miasma, etc. (I don't actually play SMN) but the egis should be fairly malleable, and it would be nice to have some bigger differences between them.

Agreed, although I liked FFXI SMN it definitely had a number of drawbacks as you say. But something about the FFXI SMN just made it feel more authentic. I'm not saying the ARR SMN should be changed so it mirrors it's XI counterpart, coz it does have some advantages in spite of the lack of focus on the Egi. However I think it's fair to say a change is needed and will come at some point in some form.

[Akiza]

Lady Iceheart already alluded to a new spell Summoner's can get. Its safe to say that in Heavensward we will get the ability to Summon and control the Primal by fusing with the Egi

[SoloWingMetatron]

Lady Iceheart already alluded to a new spell Summoner's can get. Its safe to say that in Heavensward we will get the ability to Summon and control the Primal by fusing with the Egi

I wouldn't say it's safe to say we would get such a spell. In fact it's pretty safe to say we won't. Saint Shiva is unlike other Primals, since she existed as an entity before becoming the Harrier's "Primal". So although Iceheart was able to successfully fuse with Shiva's essence, that doesnt mean it would be possible with the other Primals.

[SoloWingMetatron]

Also such a spell would be impossible to implement in a balanced way, since the SMN would gain a whole new set of abilities for each Primal/Egi they fused with. The play style would also have to change for each fusion to account for the 3 current Egi. An Ifrit fusion would have to be a close range melee, Garuda a long range, and Titan a tank. This means the SMN could essentially play as all class roles when fused with an Egi as well as still have their DoT based play style when they are not fused. Therefore it would be totally unbalanced and just break the SMN job completely. It would only work if the job was totally reworked, which is pretty unlikely to happen.

[Feylie]

No, summoners in the traditional single player JRPG FF games use summons as a limit break sort of skill.. This is an MMO, you can't have such powerful spells at your arsenal every time you cast

Ahem.... Was this not an MMO? Because I'm pretty sure Summoners were pretty Summonery.