A SMN More Like Dissidia Yuna

[Spellbinder]

And it's a shame that it doesn't matter what your intent for the thread was, because what eventually dictates the direction a thread goes is the people who post in it.

And it's up to us to remain civil, not giving in to the bait of needless bickering.

[SoloWingMetatron]

And it's a shame that it doesn't matter what your intent for the thread was, because what eventually dictates the direction a thread goes is the people who post in it. And the very vocal minority that absolutely detests FF14 summoner will always start crying about it any chance they get.

You may be right, that could indeed happen. That is by no means my fault though. I also purposefully tried to avoid that by including this statement in the intro :

I should stress that SMN's current incarnation is not broken in any way, it works, and I enjoy playing it. However that does not mean it is a perfect job and could have been implemented better.

People can make of it what they will but others in this thread have repeated that same sentiment of not bashing SMN's current incarnation. So far the responses to this have been pretty positive and civil, no real whining about SMN thus far.

[AylmerOfFamfrit]

Yeah maybe an advancement when we do get to lvl 60 or 61-65 and smn could have the Egis abilities as mentioned in the primary post but with stances for each primal. That way we maybe SE will give use access to the other primals as well. SE mention new Egis would be difficult, but maybe new stances for Shiva and such would be easier. Adding new abilities cast from a player seem to be easier to develop.

[Xairos]

I had thought about an idea much like this one. I ran into a few snags:

What we would have is essentially a melee caster. With low cast times. Or no cast times. Who is stat dependent on INT. Who would also need higher VIT stats to be able to stand in the front line. This would be a revolutionary (as far as DPS jobs in this game are concerned) marriage between front line and back line...

I am for it making an appearance.

This could work with a new job, but probably not for summoner. Great idea and keep on theorycrafting. It makes the forums sorta fun. Also I love my solo-ability with the pets of SMN, I would really miss my Potato-Tank if he was gone.

[SoloWingMetatron]

Yeah maybe an advancement when we do get to lvl 60 or 61-65 and smn could have the Egis abilities as mentioned in the primary post but with stances for each primal. That way we maybe SE will give use access to the other primals as well. SE mention new Egis would be difficult, but maybe new stances for Shiva and such would be easier. Adding new abilities cast from a player seem to be easier to develop.

Indeed, thinking realistically for a moment a complete overhaul such as mentioned in my initial post is a big ask. However a scaled back version to be implemented for SMN's lvl 61 - 70 abilities could be achievable.

I had thought about an idea much like this one. I ran into a few snags:

What we would have is essentially a melee caster. With low cast times. Or no cast times. Who is stat dependent on INT. Who would also need higher VIT stats to be able to stand in the front line. This would be a revolutionary (as far as DPS jobs in this game are concerned) marriage between front line and back line...

I am for it making an appearance.

This could work with a new job, but probably not for summoner. Great idea and keep on theorycrafting. It makes the forums sorta fun. Also I love my solo-ability with the pets of SMN, I would really miss my Potato-Tank if he was gone.

This is true, at least in terms of Ifrit and Titan based moves, the SMN would need to get in close. Perhaps Eye For An Eye could be altered to account for this to allow SMN to get in closer for the Ifrit/Titan combo's/Enkindle. Also if the SMN positions themselves to the rear of mobs at this time, that would at least keep them away from a frontal assault

Yeah Theorycrafting is always fun, so thought it was worth posting this idea for that reason alone

[Sol_Aureus]

The one thing that I've wished for the devs to do to SMN is simply change the animations/names of the abilities to something that fits better. The effect of all of SMN's abilities shouldn't change or else it would completely change the job itself, which at this point is realistically not going to happen.

Personally, I don't really think that the whole "Poison" aesthetic to SMN's primary skills (Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Bane, Fester, Virus...) doesn't really fit the aesthetic of the job itself. Why not have the DoTs change their name, icon, and animation depending on what pet you have summoned? Burn (Bio), Burn II (Bio II), Scorch (Miasma) for Ifrit, Choke (Bio), Choke II (Bio II), Vortex (Miasma) for Garuda, Rasp (Bio), Rasp II (Bio II), Sand Trap (Miasma) for Titan. Change Fester, Bane, and Virus to more generic elemental-sounding stuff like Astral Burst, Aetherbane, Enfeeble.

Something along those lines. Doesn't change the mechanics of the class at all but would fit better with the aesthetic that I think a lot of players want out of summoners. If we can't focus on the pet for the class's mechanics, at least have us use abilities that feel like we're drawing on the power of our pets.

[hagare]

I like this idea.
but I say keep the DoT mechanisms, otherwise SMN will just be a BLM with different visuals.

Actual according to lore anyone can summon primals except Summoner.

it's not like they can't, more like they won't.
since you know summoning a full primal is dangerous for the world and all.
so they just use the egis to summon that only needs to draw aether from the WoL instead of from the rest of the world like the rest of the primals.
Which would explain why we don't have new egis, WoL aether capacity probably isn't large enough for them.

I think summoner should play like beast mastery hunters in World of Warcraft.

For those who have never played that game there are various abilities that beast mastery hunters have that they have to activate manually and their pet reacts to it and does something.

Rather then have the abilities automatically be activated by the pet I think there should be more abilities that show interaction between the summoner and have to be manually used. An example of that might be an ability that the summoner uses that orders his/her summon to do a special attack and changes depending on what summon you have out.

isn't that already what they have? different attacks for every egi.
unless you mean SMN abilities?

[Tsukino]

I like this idea a lot, because it would bring summoning more into focus aesthetically, while basically allowing the job to still be a DoT and direct damage spellcaster like they already are mechanically. It would essentially make most people happy - both those who like the way it plays and those who want it to be more like a "summoner."

But I really don't think our development team has full redesigns on the table at this point, even just visually. They've pretty quickly settled into very regular patch cycles with specific types of content.

[Airget]

I think the idea of making it just a visual gimmick would be going in the wrong direction and only make SMN's a BLM with a cool looking animation behind them.

The pet integration is definitely lacking in 3.0 though I will admit that because if you see the 5 new abilities granted you have

Aetherflow usage=Painflare
Dot Usage=Tri Disaster
Dreadwyrm Trance usage=Ruin III, Dreadwyrm Trance and Deathflare

None of them enhance your playability with pets and Tri-disaster only does it on a small margin with Garuda and Contagion, but other than that those 5 abilities do nothing for Ifrit or Titan which is a shame.

The other aspect that hurts SMN is the concept of summoning is better designed for SCH, think about it, SCH has two pets, and it works perfectly, one for healing and the other as a support when you don't need as much healing. If it dies you don't lose much other than a swiftcast and right back into healing but for SMN they lose so much for a dead pet. One thing they missed completely was introducing ways to Summon the pet faster that didn't require swiftcast. There is a perfectly plausible design in which you can switch between Garuda and Ifrit to maximize DPS but since the MP cost and time it takes to cast is so high more often than not it's not worth the effort of switching between the two. Let's say maybe instead of Tri-Bind, it could of been Tri-Summon but not in the sense of summoning all three but rather that Ifrit/Garuda/Titan would be on a triangle say Garuda-Titan-Ifrit, when you use Tri-Summon it automatically summons the next pet in the triangle that pet no MP cost, no waiting, no use of your global timer and the recast could be 90-120 seconds or also use aetherflow charge to perform.. In this case the triangle is Garuda would become Titan, Titan would become Ifrit and Ifrit would become Garuda.

In this sense you could open with Ifrit use Rouse and Spur until it runs out and then "Tri-Summon" Garuda and apply your DoT or you could start with Garuda, apply DoT and any buffs to enhance it along with Contagion and then Bane and then Swift Cast summon Ifrit, use Ifrit until Contagion is up again then "Tri-Summon" Garuda and use her. In this basic sense you create a means of juggling pets that doesn't eat up MP and it supports the idea of using other pets, while yes in this bare bone change Titan is still left out however if Summoner had a tweak as small as this then other abilities could be introduced to encourage the use of Titan rather than going in the direction of focusing more on the player rather than the pet.

[Duelle]

I think the idea of making it just a visual gimmick would be going in the wrong direction and only make SMN's a BLM with a cool looking animation behind them.

Well, in fairness this is what summoner has been throughout the series (Yuna was the exception to the rule).

While I never played dissidia, the OP's suggestion reminded me of the summoner from Lost Ark (be sure to mute the music if you click on this, since it's shitty music that was added to the gameplay footage for no reason). The idea is cool but I also cringe at the thought of how much would lost with the increased amount of particle effects from this summoner's abilities.