Why are summoners so neglected?

[Ama_Hamada]

They should of just copied FFXI Summoner and improved on it so it would fit FFXIV. Instead of giving us a poor mans version of a Warlock from WOW which is what we got.

I am fairly sure that happened because it was shoehorned in to follow up ACN into something because.. 1.0 old ideas.

If it was not based on ACN and 1.0 I am sure SMN would been much better

[Inosaska]

Basically here is how the job plays out most of the time > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHTCwDXVeWY

[Duelle]

I get that - certainly a completely unaltered, direct import of FFX or XI's Summoner into XIV isn't something that would work. But why not the general concept of the pet focus? Why not a job where the pet "does the work" and the character supports it? In all the instances where XIV's SMN is casting Bio, Ruin, etc etc, could this hypothetical job not be interacting with or commanding the pet? Surely there's nothing in XIV that prohibits that.

There's a couple of reasons.

First is concept. FFX's summons basically replaced the entire party to justify how strong they were, and that's overpowered as hell and not something that would work here.

Second is incongruity in class growth. Every class in this game follows a template of 18 class skills, 10 job skills, and 11 traits. SMN as implemented in FFX would require breaking that entirely, which can be good or bad depending on what it is replaced with. FFXI actually underlines this quite well, since SMNs get almost nothing between version updates additions unless the devs add new avatars. And it's clear they've struggled with that (look at how long they took to add Cait Sith; not to mention the arguably contrived conditions to summon Odin and Alexander, which was partly done to justify how strong Zantetsuken and Perfect Defense are).

Last is use of the summons. FFX's aeons were obsoleting each other, with Yojinbo and Bahamut being the "top" summons. We can lean towards situational use by giving each summon a niche, but even that has limited and forces you to water down their relative power (hence why FFXI's summons were largely jokes for a big part of the game's lifespan). Stuff like Healing Ruby, Aerial Barrier, Earthen Wall, and Ecliptic Growl would be OP as all hell here and make SMN a must for pretty much every raid encounter (and in turn force the devs to balance the game around bringing a SMN in every group comp).

You might try to argue that summons are already situational because of how Ifrit-egi is melee, Garuda-egi is a caster and Titan-egi is a tank, but having pets with different roles is not the same as having all of a class' pets be DPS with random utility. That's not even taking into account the elemental affinities of the FFXI avatars, and how that wouldn't (and shouldn't) be part of the equation in this game.

[Silverquick]

I get that - certainly a completely unaltered, direct import of FFX or XI's Summoner into XIV isn't something that would work. But why not the general concept of the pet focus? Why not a job where the pet "does the work" and the character supports it? In all the instances where XIV's SMN is casting Bio, Ruin, etc etc, could this hypothetical job not be interacting with or commanding the pet? Surely there's nothing in XIV that prohibits that.

I don't want that... the FFXI summoner blew chunks..

It was seriously bad... and I am unconvinced its any better even nowadays...

This version of the FF Summoner is powerful and viable... the FFXI version was weak and useless.

The FFXIV Summoner is very good, and workable. I have just reached the Deathwyrm stage, and wow... impressive.

[Inosaska]

There's a couple of reasons.

First is concept. FFX's summons basically replaced the entire party to justify how strong they were, and that's overpowered as hell and not something that would work here.

Second is incongruity in class growth. Every class in this game follows a template of 18 class skills, 10 job skills, and 11 traits. SMN as implemented in FFX would require breaking that entirely, which can be good or bad depending on what it is replaced with. FFXI actually underlines this quite well, since SMNs get almost nothing between version updates additions unless the devs add new avatars. And it's clear they've struggled with that (look at how long they took to add Cait Sith; not to mention the arguably contrived conditions to summon Odin and Alexander, which was partly done to justify how strong Zantetsuken and Perfect Defense are).

Last is use of the summons. FFX's aeons were obsoleting each other, with Yojinbo and Bahamut being the "top" summons. We can lean towards situational use by giving each summon a niche, but even that has limited and forces you to water down their relative power (hence why FFXI's summons were largely jokes for a big part of the game's lifespan). Stuff like Healing Ruby, Aerial Barrier, Earthen Wall, and Ecliptic Growl would be OP as all hell here and make SMN a must for pretty much every raid encounter (and in turn force the devs to balance the game around bringing a SMN in every group comp).

You might try to argue that summons are already situational because of how Ifrit-egi is melee, Garuda-egi is a caster and Titan-egi is a tank, but having pets with different roles is not the same as having all of a class' pets be DPS with random utility. That's not even taking into account the elemental affinities of the FFXI avatars, and how that wouldn't (and shouldn't) be part of the equation in this game.

The first two summons become invalid with attaining Garuda since that Egi has the ability to extend dots making the other two completely worthless. They first have to remove contagion from Garuda in order to make the other two worth summoning but that isn't the case right now at all. I don't even see summoners summon Titan anymore and same goes for Ifrit. I see that new players are using them but veterans to the game do not use those 2 pets at all.

[Silverquick]

The first two summons become invalid with attaining Garuda since that Egi has the ability to extend dots making the other two completely worthless. They first have to remove contagion from Garuda in order to make the other two worth summoning but that isn't the case right now at all. I don't even see summoners summon Titan anymore and same goes for Ifrit. I see that new players are using them but veterans to the game do not use those 2 pets at all.

While its true... that Titan is starting to lose some strength at the upper levels, the reality here is that he's not used in dungeons and never really will but unless the Tank goes down. He might need some tweeking up in the uppermost levels, but honestly that doesn't start to happen until later about level 56 and up and its primarily for soloing.

There's nothing wrong with Ifrit. Garuda does have some abilities that are very integral to the base Summoner skillset... but honestly even outside of that I'd still probably take Garuda over Ifrit because he's got that Wind AoE you can combine with your other other AoEs and when stacked with Rouse and Spur gets pretty nasty. Nothing wrong with Ifrit, its just that the nature of the game lends itself to Garuda.

But that's not really the major issue with SMN... nor is it that it doesn't resemble a "True Final Fantasy Summoner"... it does that just fine in Dreadwyrm.

The real problem is that playing the Job with any real proficiency requires a computer... I am running 3 hot bars... 4 including the Pet Bar...

I cannot imagine anyone truly playing this job well on a console... and it's not even their fault... they just don't have the space to be able to use all of those keys with a controller.

The Summoner has Soooo many abilities that to use it properly requires using them all. And you won't be able to do that from a console and controller.

There's a good 5 DoTs to stack... plus Bane, Fester, Painflare, and Life Steal. 3 pets to summon and always the cross class skills Quick Cast, Raging Strikes, Bliz 2, and Quelling Strikes.

Rouse, Spur, and Enkindle for the Pet, not to mention, Obey and Sic, let alone Stay and Heel.

Physick for healing and Ressurection... and the grand finale of Tri-Disaster, Dreadwyrm Trance, Death Flare,

And that's not including Ruin 1, 2, and 3 because each of them are used for different reasons and do different things... and don't get into mount, and companion summoning or god help you keeping Elixirs or Potions on a bar...

AND then you have to have different hot bars for different levels because you get level sync'd a lot.

I doubt you could play one with any proficiency from a Console... luckily I use a gaming laptop so it doesn't affect me.

[Inosaska]

While its true... that Titan is starting to lose some strength at the upper levels, the reality here is that he's not used in dungeons and never really will but unless the Tank goes down. He might need some tweeking up in the uppermost levels, but honestly that doesn't start to happen until later about level 56 and up and its primarily for soloing.

There's nothing wrong with Ifrit. Garuda does have some abilities that are very integral to the base Summoner skillset... but honestly even outside of that I'd still probably take Garuda over Ifrit because he's got that Wind AoE you can combine with your other other AoEs and when stacked with Rouse and Spur gets pretty nasty. Nothing wrong with Ifrit, its just that the nature of the game lends itself to Garuda.

But that's not really the major issue with SMN... nor is it that it doesn't resemble a "True Final Fantasy Summoner"... it does that just fine in Dreadwyrm.

The real problem is that playing the Job with any real proficiency requires a computer... I am running 3 hot bars... 4 including the Pet Bar...

I cannot imagine anyone truly playing this job well on a console... and it's not even their fault... they just don't have the space to be able to use all of those keys with a controller.

The Summoner has Soooo many abilities that to use it properly requires using them all. And you won't be able to do that from a console and controller.

There's a good 5 DoTs to stack... plus Bane, Fester, Painflare, and Life Steal. 3 pets to summon and always the cross class skills Quick Cast, Raging Strikes, Bliz 2, and Quelling Strikes.

Rouse, Spur, and Enkindle for the Pet, not to mention, Obey and Sic, let alone Stay and Heel.

Physick for healing and Ressurection... and the grand finale of Tri-Disaster, Dreadwyrm Trance, Death Flare,

And that's not including Ruin 1, 2, and 3 because each of them are used for different reasons and do different things... and don't get into mount, and companion summoning or god help you keeping Elixirs or Potions on a bar...

AND then you have to have different hot bars for different levels because you get level sync'd a lot.

I doubt you could play one with any proficiency from a Console... luckily I use a gaming laptop so it doesn't affect me.

Hot bar issue bloat is being solved by the devs right now and to honestly fix it they have to give the job a focus its either a pet job or its not. If they make it a pet job they could easily replace all the abilities on it and have a command bar that pops up allowing you to control the Egi at will and use abilities that it has for itself. About the ability bloat each Egi would have its own bar that appears with its abilities. If its not a pet job then please remove the Egis and give SMN contagion and go the route of having these epic summons with long cooldowns that do tons of damage that you can cast. The job just needs some focus instead of being all over the place.

For those left over arcanist spells. I don't even have physik on the bar at all and resurrection is solely saved for the healer death to revive them otherwise it just sits there most of the time unused.

They need to split SMN off from ACN and SCH in order to fix it.

[Keyln]

I must be the only one in the world who pet swaps...

Anyway, there's quite a bit that SE could do about SMN, let's discuss what SMN was supposed to be in FF FXIV, and that's a pet class. I remember a survey way back when in 1.0 that Yoshida sent out, and one of the options was a pet-based like SMN, and guess what we got, SMN. And it was marketed as a pet-based class. And in 2.0, a big deal in the quests was made around Carbuncle and later the Egi's. Even a few of SMN's abilities were focused on the pet. The problem, though, in 3.0 is that the focus went away from the pet and towards the master. No new pet abilities or new pets, and the horrible scaling from 50 to 60 on the part of the Egi's. This is the state of SMN as it is now. Pets are largely ignored, and the focus is on the master and the ability to increase the AoE abilities.

Yet, there are still things that could change that in 4.0. If I were SE, I would encourage pet swapping. This could include new abilities that complemented the egi's abilities. I would probably give a temporary buff to a new and different pet egi summoned to encourage pet swapping. And I would also throw in new pets, and at the very least, a shiva-egi, a leviathan-egi, and a ramuh-egi.

There's so much that SE could do, but it really depends on what SE wants to do. Do they want SMN to be more pet-based such as in 2.0, or more master-based as in 3.0? We've already seen the direction that SE is going in with SCH, with the ability to sacrifice the fairy for more heal power...

[Silverquick]

Hot bar issue bloat is being solved by the devs right now and to honestly fix it they have to give the job a focus its either a pet job or its not. If they make it a pet job they could easily replace all the abilities on it and have a command bar that pops up allowing you to control the Egi at will and use abilities that it has for itself. About the ability bloat each Egi would have its own bar that appears with its abilities. If its not a pet job then please remove the Egis and give SMN contagion and go the route of having these epic summons with long cooldowns that do tons of damage that you can cast. The job just needs some focus instead of being all over the place. For those left over arcanist spells. I don't even have physik on the bar at all and resurrection is solely saved for the healer death to revive them otherwise it just sits there most of the time unused. They need to split SMN off from ACN and SCH in order to fix it.

Why in the hell would you want to play anything as boring as that...

Hell why don't you just go out and play the pet.... instead of an actual character because that basically makes your character irrelevent...

So what the hell is the point... there isn't one... .

....and its STILL doesn't even make it close to a True Final Fantasy Summoner.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I know lots of people that play smn with proficiency on a controller.