Why are summoners so neglected?

[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.

[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.

[Inosaska]

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.

I was just tossing out idea's.

[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...

[SenorPatty]

Underwhelming Ps4 SMN performance.

I'm gonna laugh a bit here, not at you, trust me or your argument. If anything, you just made me remember when I thought I couldn't play it on the ps4. I actually had switched to keyboard and mouse for a while (while still connected to the ps4).

Turns out, its boils down to muscle memory. Seriously, the only thing I could not do with a ps4 as a smn is activate contagion at will. Otherwise, I was manhandling that controller like someone on speed. Short of that, I managed to do it all.

I would of course kill for streamlined hotbar skills but there was a time when it just was pure and total reflexes working.