Summoner revamp

[YohSL]

I recently returned to the game after years since launch, and the one thing that partially ruined my experience and was a massive disappointment, and continues to do so, is the Summoner.

Mainly in the fact that it's not really a summoner. Because it yaknow, doesn't really summon anything. It's a discount black mage with a pet. And with Havensward it's continuing on it's wrong headed trajectory.
And while I can understand why the Summoner ended up the way it did from a development perspective at re-launch, I don't accept that it should continue to do so going forward.



continued......

[YohSL]

I think it comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what a summoner is and does. Summoners don't have pets, they don't do most of the damage themselves with a pet to supplement, that would be more of a Beastmaster or Puppetmaster.
Summons are their partners, where they do heavy lifting and you support them and fight vicariously through them. They are your weapon and shield both. They are not your pets.

Almost every other game in the franchise gets this right. Esp FF11, where you went on an epic quest for each and everyone of your summons, where they felt like part of your family by the time you were done.

[YohSL]

In FF14 the summons would be the Primals. Not crappy little elemental version of them, ie Egi. But Avatars of the Primals themselves. Basically smaller, thou still quite large compared to your character, with perhaps a few cosmetic differences.

And it wouldn't be the first time in the series where an originally antagonistic summon becomes your ally in the end, usually after defeating them in battle and proving your worth to them. So Lore wise there shouldn't be anything prevent this.
(not a lore expert)

It would also save on modelling and animating entirely new pets for the summoner, since many of the primals are already done. As for the skills that the summoner/arcanist already has, how about repackaging it and putting it into a new job that is purely about direct dot damage.


You recycle the work that's already been done, and Summoners actually get to bloody summon.
Also the Scholar could also stand to get a little love in this department as well, even if their selection is limited purely to the healing and supportive primals, like Siren and Mog King.

However as it stands, I will never accept this 'thing' as a summoner. It's not.

[MagiusNecros]

I've said it before. Summoner is a complete joke. Poor man's Necromancer. But half the players love their Super Arcanist so I really think the traditional Summoner is screwed. SMN is pretty much lol garuda DoT spread lolcontagion and then spam fancy oGCD's and ruin popguns.

Ifrit is barely used and Titan Egi is well an afterthought.

Tank enmity ratio's got buffed. Guess who didn't? Titan Egi.

Any new pet skills in HW? Nope. When was their last skill? 40. What level are you now? 60.

[zcrash970]

While I completely understand where you are coming from, I disagree with you. What I imagine what you summoner to be is usually coupled with high cast times and long cooldowns. That in itself would make SMN useless in most fights. Also with how combat is set up in FF14 having an array of support abilities is pointless. We only need the basics like regens, mitigation, and vulnerabilities downs. Either FF14 while combat content needs to change or make the summons have very generic abilities.

Also having bigger egis would go against lore in this game. We have who because SMNs use their own aether to create them and not a stockpile of crystals. If we make the egis too powerful, they could tempered the SMN or the Tristan accident might happen again. However, it would be possible to make our egis stronger if SMNs learn how to harness the aether around us like black and white magic.
I know it was a cop out but our limited aether abilities are explained on why we couldn't summon a Ramuh egi.

I do agree that we need new abilities for our egis though, but honestly, I rather SE to go further into Trances then more egis

[Greedalox]

We have who because SMNs use their own aether to create them and not a stockpile of crystals.

This is the 4.0 Summoner preparing to summon Shiva in full!

[Eloah]

Dear god no, not another one of these threads. Does Summoner have flaws, yes, can these flaws be fixed, yes, maybe with the next expansion. But, is it a traditional Summoner, no, but neither was 13s, 12s, 11s, 10s, 9s, 8s, 7s, 6s, 5s, 4s, or 3s, hmm... looks like no Final Fantasy has ever had a traditional Summoner, how about that. I guess they all had their own individual versions that each just had similar concepts but different executions, imagine that. And please if you wanna argue issue with Summoner, don't bring up 11, your shooting yourself in the foot if you do that. Instead if you want to make a valid point, express the issues with the summons and ways you feel they can be fixed.

And I semi agree with what zcrash970 said, giving us more trance-like abilities might help. That way people might feel like their summons are doing one big attack and then leaving. Then maybe these threads will stop appearing, and people will shut up.

Signed a pissed Scholar, (PS. Don't touch my job ;P )

[Neophyte]

Well, how often does a SMN summons a summon in those fancy games you showed in the first post? One or two times?
And to be fair: In all those games SMN was a discount black mage (or white mage) with a collection of extra spells. I.e. a SMN has no single 'own' abilities despite the summonings.
So, what's it then: Until 50 a thaumaturg with up to three 5 min CD summons? Or a conjurer?

Also please revamp fighter.
I want strong (auto-)attack, double and triple auto-attack, auto counterattack and berserk (which is basically auto run auto attack). Maby a few more abilities, idk. Thx.

[Hasrat]

That image is so weird. VII didn't have any summoners, just summons. I guess in theory you could make your own summoner if you want, but it wouldn't be very efficient, high cost, very squish.
VIII, why is Phoenix displayed? It was one of very few things you couldn't directly summon. And also, still no summoners this game.
Summoners in IX were just White Mages with summons.
Why is X-2 Yuna next to Anima? They couldn't even get the games right on that one. And again, summoner just tacked onto white mage (although in a much more expanded role I guess).
XII had a good set of summons, too, but still no summoner. Plus I don't know of anyone that ever consistently used/relied on them in that game.

Summoner has always struck me as a role with a very loose definition. And most often that depends greatly on the story of the game. I don't really mind it as is, but sure, there's plenty of other designs they could've used. Maybe it would've been cool to use "summons" as a stance. Ifrit-stance, Titan-stance, etc. Skills adjusting accordingly. Idk. But, this is what we got. Probably they didn't want the class to seem totally useless if the pets die, so probably better to not make the class completely reliant on them.

[Cabalabob]

Before 2.0 yoshi said he didn't want a smn job because he wanted summons to feel like super powerful beings, and that having a summoner job has to have balanced summons which belittles them being powerful. But he added smn due to popular demand and went as far out of his way as he could to make summons the exact opposite of powerful to the point where they are basically nothing more than an auto attack.

So the simple reason summons in 14 are bad is because the director is spiteful!

The reason people dislike summoner in 14 is because it's just so backwards, instead of focusing on your pet as your primary means of doing damage, with casting spells being something to do in your pet's downtime, casting spells is what you do primarily and your pet is an afterthought. That simply is not a summoner. It doesn't matter if 14 wants a "different take on summoner". it's the fact that what they've produced is not a summoner that displeases people.

And no, more trances is not the way to go. Trances were a bandaid for SMN because it was so poorly designed (in 2.x SCH could out damage SMN) and they pull summoner even further away from being a summoner and even more towards the player doing everything while the pet watches and auto attacks.

But sadly, since 3.0 I'm in the camp of summoner cannot be saved. It should just be renamed to evoker and free up summoner to be a future job in another expansion and hopefully done right.

That image is so weird. VII didn't have any summoners, just summons. I guess in theory you could make your own summoner if you want, but it wouldn't be very efficient, high cost, very squish.
VIII, why is Phoenix displayed? It was one of very few things you couldn't directly summon. And also, still no summoners this game.
Summoners in IX were just White Mages with summons.
Why is X-2 Yuna next to Anima? They couldn't even get the games right on that one. And again, summoner just tacked onto white mage (although in a much more expanded role I guess).
XII had a good set of summons, too, but still no summoner. Plus I don't know of anyone that ever consistently used/relied on them in that game.

The caption on the picture says SUMMONS not SUMMONERS. The point of the picture is to show that summons in all other ff games are like stallions and then ffxiv got a shetland pony.