Why are summoners so neglected?

[Daranion]

My issue here is why the class is called Summoner in the first place. We're evokers, not summoners. Even our starter gear is the Evokers set. We summon a small aspect of their power, and that's it. A single attack like Death flare etc. If we want to be real Summoners we'd need to pull out the full primals or pull a Yuna from Dissidia. Seriously, name change them to Evokers and then you have no problem

[NaesakiAshwell]

You mean SMN's that don't know what they're doing put DoTs on and spam Ruin.

I like your rotation but honestly I find Ruin II too much of a waste of mp, I mean if you take into consideration the gcd wait, there's not much of a discrepancy between just using regular Ruin in the downtime when you can't overuse Ruin III outside of trance. I also tend to save Tri-Disaster for the go arounds of Dreadwyrm Trance so that I don't waste any of its timer on manually casting the dots so that I can get more Ruin III in before deathflare.

Though a lot of that has built up from my habit of ensuring I have an mp reserve outside of Aetherflow for getting people back up if they die.

[Settiesama]

My issue here is why the class is called Summoner in the first place. We're evokers, not summoners. Even our starter gear is the Evokers set. We summon a small aspect of their power, and that's it. A single attack like Death flare etc. If we want to be real Summoners we'd need to pull out the full primals or pull a Yuna from Dissidia. Seriously, name change them to Evokers and then you have no problem

Evokers aren't about summoning a small aspect of power, they're apprentice summoners. They summon, but have no control over the summoned creature, which does what it wants to aid the evoker, as long as it doesn't break the pact and turn on them. Summoners on the other hand are seasoned evokers and can control the summoned creature, telling them what to do in battle. We CAN tell the Egi's what to do, we are Summoners. The only requirements of a Summoner job is to summon a being and control it, that is it. (By control in terms of older games, summoning it for it's Signature attack)

As for the Evoker's set, that was named after the FFXI Artifact Armour, which in turn was a throwback to FF3's Evoker class in that you got Artifact Armour there mid levels, so still learning, even though you were a Summoner as you controlled the Avatar. The Relic Armour (Artifact Armour 2) was named Summoner's gear, to reflect being seasoned.

[Remus]

My issue here is why the class is called Summoner in the first place. We're evokers, not summoners. Even our starter gear is the Evokers set. We summon a small aspect of their power, and that's it. A single attack like Death flare etc. If we want to be real Summoners we'd need to pull out the full primals or pull a Yuna from Dissidia. Seriously, name change them to Evokers and then you have no problem

Don't summoners summon things? I'm pretty sure you do that in FFXIV.... Personally If they continue to go in the direction of trances I think this game has the best iteration of a summoner. In my opinion summoners from the previous series were so over-rated for what they did. Also I get so triggered when I see people say summon the full primal smaller but the full thing... do you listen to the lore of the game at all? Primals are bad they suck aether from the planet. You can't sustain a primal with your own aether...

This thread says why are summoners neglected but that makes no sense because they are going out of their way and gave you a whole system where you can change the appearance of your summon and they will be adding more of them so I don't see what the problem is. You can have more pets in a MMO but one or 2 will always be the best so there is no point. It's not a single player FF game you need to remember that and from what people say FFXI summoner doesn't seem that great either because they tried to go with a fantasy of a summoner and forgot that the game is a MMO and pretty much fell on its butt and hardly did they primary role unless soloing.

[Jerbob]

Also I get so triggered when I see people say summon the full primal smaller but the full thing... do you listen to the lore of the game at all? Primals are bad they suck aether from the planet. You can't sustain a primal with your own aether...

The problem I have with this line of reasoning is that SE has already violated their own lore. We know Primals are incredibly dangerous because of their aether-devouring properties, but SE wanted a job that works with Primals so they circumvented this issue by creating the Egi system.

They went further to use their lore to try to justify to us "in-world" why additional Egis can't happen (when they explicitly stated that the true reason is that they didn't have any idea what new Egis could actually do to make them unique), and then took it even further by adding another lore addendum that channelling an elder Primal's aether through ourselves is perfectly safe.

Lore is flexible. There's no reason that SE couldn't create a safe way for us to summon something better than Egis, if they wanted to. They could do it tomorrow. They are quite happy to use lore as an excuse when it suits them, but it's important to remember that they have complete control over that lore. All it would take is a single NPC to run up to us and share a discovery of a safe way to call upon Primal energies that also prevents them draining aether, or a way to summon Egis that aren't... less than great. Most of the summoner quest story is this principle in action.

from what people say FFXI summoner doesn't seem that great either

Be careful about what people say about FFXI summoner. Half of them have never played XI, and most of those that have played SMN did so years ago. XI SMN was awful for a long time but that's because SE had no idea how to make gear for it, not because the concept was poor. Things have improved greatly.

[eschaton]

Yup it’s really weird summoners (SCH alt's) are still in the state they are in after all this time. Yes it basically has been like this from the start. Yes remove the dual base class and make them a proper dps class.

[Shougun]

Also I get so triggered when I see people say summon the full primal smaller but the full thing... do you listen to the lore of the game at all? Primals are bad they suck aether from the planet. You can't sustain a primal with your own aether...

Seems a bit of your own forcing in that. They have said we can't summon the whole thing without serious issues, you're adding untrue stipulation to other images and sizes. For example nothing in the lore says you can't improve your summoning and having something not full but larger/closer to image (there is the Icarus moment with the other summoner in the storyline but I shouldn't have to explain why that isn't a limit on ourselves improving over time).

WoL are constantly becoming stronger without bounds it seems. You could easily lore in a larger egi with closer resemblance - as the lore only states why we started small and why you /shouldn't/ summon the full thing. Heck we have the summoner wisping at elder primal energies now.

So you're being unnecessarily strict and triggered. So long as people don't ask for the full 100% version it doesn't immediately break anything.

Egi is just an aether image anyways what to say you don't become more efficient and just get better at making your image but it's not more powerful. Egi mirage, egi glamour - there is no lore issue (so long as you're not actually summoning thing itself). Although personally it'd be cool just to see a new tier of egi, like spirit master in aion or what WoW has done (higher tier demons). Higher tier egi could be skimming off multiple primal at one time (ifrit + ramuh volcanic thunder like imagery), new strong appearance, unique to summoner and they can make the previous tier glamour options - relatively simple balance then (no 8 new egi pets, only improved of the three and a lot of glamour - although I am aware many would like to actually see more egi as their own).

[Ririta]

snip

Even more trances would make us just another flavor of BLM. The point of a pet class it to command and work with pets.

Even if you're gonna go the "egi" route, they don't have to look like that, and we don't have to be limited to 3.

The lore is written to serve the game, not the opposite. We just got an excuse for "channeling Bahamut's aether through our bodies". Nothing stops them from making an excuse that Bahamut's aether would allow us to sustain whatever we want. Not to mention that this is a game where you ride Behemoths and Twintanias, where you wear the outfits of every FF protagonist and, of course, there's quirky Yokai Watch stuff. But of course, when it comes to summoners, "it's the lore! It can't happen!"

The glamour system sucks. The Carbuncles' animation don't match their original animation, not to mention the nonsense attacks that they're keeping. It may be called "Ruby Carbuncle" but it isn't. Also, reminder that nobody asked for glamours. We were promised new, actual egis. Glamour was a compromise, and it failed hard (if that isn't neglect then I don't know what is)

Inform yourself on Cataclysm' and Mists of Pandaria's hunters. Every cunning and ferocity pet had a use in groups. It's just a question of good design. To be honest I'm getting really tired of the argument "it'll always have one best and no one will ever use the others". With that mentality, then why are we getting samurai and red mage? We can't have 3 casters and 4 melees in a party, "one or 2 will always be the best so there is no point". But of course, again, this argument is only used when it's about summoners.

[FeliAiko]

The fact of the matter is this: the FFX-iteration of the SMN job would not work with XIV's battle system, which was the point Yoshi was making in that quote about Jobs (i.e. you can't just copy paste single player iterations of a role into a MMO and call it a day). People need to stop acting like Yuna was the first SMN introduced to FF, when at that time she was merely the latest in a line of various versions of the Job throughout the series. The only commonality SMNs have had was that they could call on the power of certain creatures into battle. Only difference was how they did it, from flashy AOE spells, to controllable avatars, to trances, whatever.

Now I'm not saying you have to be a fan of XIVs take on the Job, of course, but spare me the mess about how SE hasn't stayed true to SMN, how it's not a 'real Summoner', or that they're neglecting it when they went through the bother of giving it an exclusive vanity element. A feature that IMO they shouldn't have wasted time doing but whatever.

[Jib]

Talk and discuss the state of summoners ... and scholars also!
I agree...

summoners negleted though!?! Seriously?!! Im sorry but ... Seriously?!!?