But what about Summoner???

[Saggo]

snip

You didn't like them so they don't count? I don't think it works that way.

[Lemuria]

FF10, you have a partial control of it

Partial? You literally choose all of their skills and abilities. They effectively become a party member, giving you full access to all of their attacks. So, bad example there. In fact, you can even teach them specific spells like Protect and Haste, making them effective combatants in their own right. The 'no-sphere grid' challenge relies on using summons to win every fight.

FF11, mmorpg bad example

Errm, last I checked FFXIV was an MMORPG, or am I missing something? Surely a fellow MMO is exactly the sort of benchmark we should be using to judge our summons in this game. Especially another one with the Final Fantasy moniker!

FF12, you call it, but exept the big attack you have no control over him behaviour
FF13, like the 10.

True for 12, false for 13. You're on a time limit, but all of the skills used are entirely down to your own discretion.

i don't count FF11 since a mmorpg will make the summoner a pet class generally. FF12 was made on a model of mmorpg, but i still count it.

Again, you discredit yourself since FFXIV is actually an MMO. Or do you consider this game to be a first person shooter?

Honestly, the pets in ARR might as well not even exist for all the good they do. I would have actually preferred a Black Mage style summon and dismiss to the rubbish 'it exists' style of summon we have here. The damage they do is terrible, they almost zero support skills, and they exist solely because of the job name. Painflare was greatly needed because we really lacked spike damage of any kind. Fester requires you to already have multiple DoT's on the target, and energy drain is weak and single target. Compare it to BLM who can spam Fire II for 100 potency on all targets (or use Flare for much more), and it's easy to see where we needed to play catch-up.

So, in general the new direction makes sense from a gameplay standpoint. But I maintain that Summoner feels so unlike a summoning job it might as well be called Mystic for all the emphasis it has. Pet jobs can be done well, but they've decided to have zero emphasis on the pets. In my opinion, Scholar is more of a summoner than Summoner is. At least their pets aren't just slightly useful, but genuinely crucial to every aspect of the job, with strength that rivals the caster.

[AriaEnia]

in ff14, they are just extra DPS.

Actually, they aren't extra dps, they ARE your dps. Without egis, a SMN only does 75% - 80% dps. Without egis, SMN's dps is subpar compared to other dps.

[Khalithar]

So, in general the new direction makes sense from a gameplay standpoint. But I maintain that Summoner feels so unlike a summoning job it might as well be called Mystic for all the emphasis it has. Pet jobs can be done well, but they've decided to have zero emphasis on the pets. In my opinion, Scholar is more of a summoner than Summoner is. At least their pets aren't just slightly useful, but genuinely crucial to every aspect of the job, with strength that rivals the caster.

Well said, especially your point about the scholar bit! I feel the same way. Summoner does not really live up to it's name. They do at least explain a good deal of the why in the story yes, but as Lemuria said, they may as well change the name then. A Summoner should be a pet class or it should be about actually summoning things to attack for you. As is, the "Summoner" is not a summoner, it's one hell of a strong dps class though, I cant deny that.

[Exodus-E]

The SMN quest even tells you right off the bat at lvl50: No Ramuh-Egi or of other primals because they are too stronk to steal part of their essence. So instead you get to channel Bahamut's power, which works just as well for me, way more fun to play now. Who cares about the pet? FF Summoners have always been about unleashing large powers, not being a pet handler.

Actually, that's not accurate.

It's not that they're too strong for us to steal their essence (we still have the essence of ALL primals we've defeated thus far within us), it's just that our own reserves of aether are insufficient to create yet another independent Egi construct (ie. no Summon IV).

Hence what prompted Y'mhitra to find out about an alternative way of summoning (Trance).

[hagare]

it's more if we try to summon the whole thing.... first we will need tons of cristal and second they will try either to kill us or...kill us since we can't be controled.

I'm talking about the egis, not the whole freakin' primal xD

[Volsung]

yea no new egis for now. EDIT-> I'll go on to explain their reasoning. They were having a hard
time deciding between the new egis or a system to make smn more involved, as they felt half the time
smn was waiting for aetherflow stacks to come back, which is true. This is why they went with the
new stacks/stance system, to fill in that second half. I'm sure in the future we'll see the egi's or other
similar systems.

pipe dreams - ramuh , less damage but has enfeebs
levi, less damage but acts as support (like selene)

But if we're gonna talk about what we wish smn was, I would be ok with DoTs/ruin as base
damage but then having several larger attacks on timers, much like deathflare that used part of primals
essense vs current egi system.

[jomoru]

FFXI is the best example of allowing you to do this. I actually would have preferred the FFXI model where you summon a large version of the summon which acts as a pet, but it's not there to supplement your dps. The summon was your dps, it was about commanding and controlling the powerful creature and having it do your bidding for you. I actually think that would have been the better implementation of the Summoner, but MMO's in general have tried to move away from combat pets being anything more than a glorified dot. That irritates me, I'd rather get a pet class where the focus was the pet doing the damage and fighting for you while you get to sit back and give it orders.

I miss masterminds from COV...

[Moonleg]

even with FF11 we are far from the 5 game... in the whole FF series and spin off, you have about 4 game that allows a certain control over the summons over more of 20 games... that too little for really make it what define a jobs.

Please keep in mind the lack of processing power on computers and consoles during the first many FF games - there simply wasn't ROOM to make a pet class.

[Spellbinder]

I miss masterminds from COV...

I don't think any game will top mastermind when it comes to pets.