[Suggestion] My thoughts on Summoner

[newb]

**DISCLAIMER** - These are just my ideas slapped on to a text post AND ARE IN NO WAY TO BE TAKEN 100% TO HEART

I'm going to start this off by stating that this seemed like the most appropriate place for me to post this at the time; also I'm aware that SE has stated several times in the past that they have NO intention of changing how summoner role fundamentally plays. With that out of the way let us begin.

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Summons
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Lets begin with the large underlying problem of summons. They are broken, completely and utterly broken. The concept behind having a tanking option for soloing or for backup on an add in a trial or something is nice but really doesn't end up working well in my opinion. The only times I've ever pulled out Titan have been more or less for jokes or in low level content. Titan-egi aside Ifrit is only useful in niche fights also such as SCOB 4 against the avatar where you have an opponent that doesn't move and will not fire off AOE's that will kill him. Now all we have left is Garuda to fill the ranged archetype and is largely overpowered due to her ability to switch targets and keep damage up along with Contagion. This is all pretty common knowledge but there is a reason for it. What other summons could be possibly have that aren't simply copy/pastes of what we already have just with another skin? It doesn't leave you with many options.

My first suggestion would be to scrap the current summoning system and implement something closer to the XI system. However I'm not a fan of just recycling something, nor completely destroying what is in place. I love the idea behind deathflare and building up to some serious damage. So why not cut out the current summoning system and create something that feels more like a true summoner? My point here being that we add more spells in to make up for the lack of summons (I'll get to that later) and build up towards summoning more of a full-sized Eidolon that stays on the field for a limited amount of time and feels more like a miniature limit-break. This would allow for a larger variety of summons and a better distinction between summoner and scholar. Some of the effects I can think of could be:

• Garuda - Extends DoT's of all party members/Deals moderate WIND damage
• Ifrit - Deals massive FIRE elemental AOE damage
• Titan - Defensivly buffs party for 15-20(?) seconds & deals small damage
• Shiva - Deals Massive conal ICE damage
• Ramuh - Deals moderate area wide LIGHTNING damage/leaves DoT on foes hit
• Bahamut's Essence - Mini-flare somewhat like the current Deathflare
• Chocobo - Random healing/damage
• Cait Sith - Unaspected Magical Damage or Trumpet giving temp buffs

WHOA WHOA WHOA.... that's too overpowered you say? Nay, you're losing a large portion of your damage from the loss from the pet and it would require the elemental wheel to be added back. The elemental wheel would further cause each summon to become more or less useful from fight to fight, and it would add back in the option for them to have a boss which switches elemental resistances.

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Spells
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We finally made it here (yaayyy). As previously mentioned I think the elemental wheel would need to be reincorporated (should never have been removed in the first place) for any of this to be borne to fruit. I rather like the base spells that we currently have such as miasma and bio and feel that they moved away from the idea of debuffing and ailing the enemy to simply mushing out damage in the form of abilities with long cooldowns. I guess this is alright but it feels a lot like a more mobile black magus. Simply put summoner should focus on ripping down defenses while doing damage to aide the damage of the party and preparing to tear the boss a new !@#hole with its summon. So without further ado lets get in to some spell concepts:

• Bacterium - | 1:00 CD | Free Cast | Defense down 3% & M-Defense down 5% for 15s (Immunity for 1:30 after effects drop)
• ??? - | 1:00 CD | ??? Cast | Slashing down 5% for 20s (Immunity for 30s after effect drops)
• ??? - | 1:00 CD | ??? Cast | Blunt down 5% for 20s (Immunity for 30s after effect drops)
• Slow - |GCD| Diminishing effect - Slows Targets Magical casts by 15-20% for 20s (Healer help during a fast succession of tankbusters maybe?
• Aether Attune | 30s CD | Removes effects of all DoT's and brings you closer to the aether. Miasma, Bio, and Bio II must be in effect |

• Summons (preselect x from summons unlocked?) *

After Reading through the comments and thinking back to past FF games it seems that the current spells also don't really quit fit since summoners have been more attuned with nature in the past. (ie. FFIV). I am now at a loss as to how to think up a unique spell list that would not seem like a gimped black mage copy-paste.

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Final Thoughts
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For the most part the class should stay mobile and ramp-up damage while providing a versatile arsenal of summons and spells to aide the parties progression. Take note that I am also not a large fan of DPS races and prefer mechanics that may require you to actually push a phase at a better time rather than just blowing through everything as fast as possible. (I'm not talking about hard wipes either like pushing ramuh too fast with his adds up).

/shrug

I have thoughts on the other classes too, maybe I'll type those up someday...

[newb]

[reserved]

To address those who think that this is me simple complaining, I don't think it is. I am simply trying to find a way that the class can feel more like the classic summoner. As for the Elemental Wheel I do not believe that it would unbalance the classes if implemented correctly. I would also like to STRESS the point that the summons would no longer be up permanently but rather would only be up for a short while and take quite some time to get back on to the field. They would be somewhat the equivilant of a tanks "OH SH!@" button. (HG, Living Dead, The warrior one that I can't remember).


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Elemental Wheel
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I will type this up later. Let it be known that it will apply to all classes.

[kesco]

i completely agree but please go into more detail

[Kogasan]

I actually like the way smn is now. Se please don't listen to this op.

[MagiusNecros]

I'm interested. Tell me more. Would like to see more accurate depictions of the Summoner instead of a half baked Necromancer.

[Ashbury]

Hey man, I respect your opinion but I like the way summoner is now. I don't want it to change, would you mind letting me continue to have fun the way the job currently is? I'd be very sad to lose what I have.

Would that be ok?

[Cabalabob]

Hey man, I respect your opinion but I like the way summoner is now. I don't want it to change, would you mind letting me continue to have fun the way the job currently is? I'd be very sad to lose what I have.

Would that be ok?

No, no it is not ok, because what you want to play is a DoT class like necromancer, red Mage, scholar, arcanist, elementalist. What you do not want to play is a pet class, like summoner, beastmaster, puppetmaster. If you want what it is now, that's fine, for another job, it is not fine for summoner.

The problem with summoner is purely that it is attached to arcanist, basically all summoner's abilities are to do with arcanist and barely anything to do with summoning. Summoner should be taken off arcanist or renamed to something else like spiritmaster or evoker so summoner can be implemented as a full pet job later on.

[Exodus-E]

Ok, two things:

A) How would it work if any new Primal(s) gets implemented?

At least with the Egi glamour system you could (potentially) have them all, and still keep them in a certain role while "changing" their appearance to compensate, allowing you to (technically) have far more pets available than FFXI.

B) The "elemental" wheel is NOT coming back (other than flavor text).

Making it relevant would break balance faster than you could say "(black) magic", making casters as a whole way too OP.

And as we know, breaking balance is the last thing the devs' want.

[Xaeth]

"I like it as it is now" is ok as an opinion but it's useless as an argument...
I personally want Summoner to change since it doesn't make quite sense but I'm quite open to ideas as long as the style is consistent and as long as it's 100% about summoning which it isn't right now in my opinion.

[CyrilLucifer]

At least with the Egi glamour system you could (potentially) have them all, and still keep them in a certain role while "changing" their appearance to compensate, allowing you to (technically) have far more pets available than FFXI.

Fundamentally, though, that does absolutely nothing. It will still be Garuda, even if it looks like Cait Sith.

I personally immensely dislike the way current SMN plays, but I'm not entirely sure how I'd fix it.