Why are summoners so neglected?

[Duelle]

Thing is, if they make it focus on the pet more, they have to make it so the pet is the focus of damage going out, as well as the smn itself. That means your healer now has to heal an extra person, or else the smn gets gimped when the summon dies.

Not necessarily. You can just increase the pet's contributions to overall DPS without making them the main source of DPS for the SMN. The only cost the SMN would pay on that end is not get more skills ripped off from Bahamut.

I've said this before, but pet focus doesn't mean that you turn SMN into the Lineage II Arcana Lord (a mage that summoned cats that auto attacked and used skills on the mob, with the AL's main abilities being heals meant for their pet along with buffs that increased the pet's speed, attack and defense). You can be obvious about it by giving the job abilities that enhance/buff the pet. You can be subtle about it by making the pet deal more damage to targets under the effect of your DoTs. You can also be somewhere in between, where your pet benefits from actions taken by you (example being that using Energy Drain or Fester enhances your pet somehow). There's a good number of possibilities when it comes to master-pet interactions, and I can understand why some are frustrated to see those seemingly ignored for yet another expansion.

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Speaking for myself, at this point what I want to see is the job stick to one design and go with it. Either develop egi, or make SMN an entirely trance-based job from the ground up. The design right now leans one way then goes the other way after you hit lv52.

[Kaethra]

I sometimes wonder exactly what playstyle Summoners are after.

I dunno how others see it. But as I just switched to SMN from NIN a week ago. I've found I rather like the Summoner class. It is a pet class with dots. That screams Necromancer from the Everquest's and I rather enjoyed that class in those two games, personally.

One issue I do see with SMN is well.. I've played a few FF games in the past and its.. missing something. The game's I've played a bit, that had summoners as prominent were FFIV, FFVI, FFVII, and FFVIII (yes I know other games had it too, but I didn't play through them all the way or haven't played them). The common theme is you normally have a Summoner like Rydia, Terra, and what not. They're a black magic caster with some bursty summons on the side.

So I can see the appeal and desire with having burst damage on the summons.

Well.. we already have the burst damage. And hear me out for those of you who play SMN. But we have Enkindle. I dunno about you all, but under the effects of Spur and Rouse. This does a ton of damage. It has its issues though.

It requires Spur and Rouse pretty much. One attack requires 3 cooldowns. To make matters worse, those cooldowns aren't even in sync. Two of them are the same damn spell just (to my knowledge, if they don't stack let this newbie smn know lol) stack.

Another issue (and this has been brought up before, but I'm doing it for posterity) is three Egi's and that's it. Not only are there three, but two of them generally aren't used outside specific times.

So here's what I propose. I've played a few MMORPGs in my time. And to be quite honest. I usually hate pet classes. Reason being is the micromanagement of pets gets annoying. Some do it right though. In the EQ's, the necromancer summons their pet, sics it on a target and goes about their rotation while the pet does what it needs to. IMO that's what the Summoner needs to do here.

What this does is allows a summoner to play like previous summoners in previous games. You have your summon, but you're a caster first. So cast away. What I would do is make Contagion a standard SMN spell. Hell I'd even make it take an aetherflow charge to cast (increasing Aethertrail). Since you can already Fester, Bane, and Energy Drain (or Painflare) to get into Trance, I don't see this as OP.

I would replace Spur and Rouse with other spells. Maybe temporary summons that aren't primals (kinda like Carbuncle). Or other Black Magic that isn't tied to Black Mages, like Quake, Osmose (make Energy Drain regular Drain and do more damage/healing), and Stop (DoM caster stun). To offset the DPS loss in pets, increase the potency of their attacks by a small amount. And increase the potency of Enkindle abilities.

Quality of life and Aesthetic changes are needed as well. Those are the biggest complaints I've seen about the summoner as well. So here's some changes in that department I would do:

Enkindle is now the same across the board. A ranged attack (no longer a PBAOE for some Egi's) that does a good amount of AOE damage. Also the icon and name of Enkindle is renamed whatever the current Egi's signature attack is. Why? Because its cool to say you cast Mistral Scream or Hellfire. No other reason needed. I'd also change the look to make it LOOK like those attacks are happening. There's no reason for those attacks to look worse than a Fire III.

More Egi's. I dunno why there is any pushback towards this. But in EQ2, the necro has like 2 dozen different styles of pets and morphs on the shop to change the look. WoW's hunter has god knows how many different pets. Even EQ allows petamorphs from the shop and some quests. I think I suggested it before but what should happen is there should be a line of abilities for a tank stance, caster stance, and melee stance on pets (you want healing, get the fairy out on SCH). And the animation is dependent on the glamour used. And of course lets get glamours for Shiva, Ramuh, and Leviathan.

Basically you can pull out any Egi, and it can tank, cast, or melee. And it allows the summoner to use the look and style that fits with their character. Basically throw the RPers a bone here. Maybe even allow them to use Behemoth horns and Odin's Mantle (or whatever its called) to buy more glamours.

And finally, and I'm not sure how to balance this. But allow Ruin (or II, or III, or all three in some form) to help reduce the cooldown on Aetherflow. There's sometimes stints in the rotation where the dots are up, but trance was used and you're waiting for the last 5-15 seconds of aetherflow and you ruin spam for those last few seconds. Ruin has its use. But damn if it isn't underwhelming during those periods. Nothing crazy like 5s off with each successful hit. Maybe 1-2s tops. If it increases DPS too much, just adjust how SS affects dots so that SS increase goes to how fast ruin goes out and it increases the damage by how much was lost from SS adjustment.

[Niqote]

Honestly, I think the problem with SMN boils down to the fact that we are the main damage dealers and the summon itself is a tag along, which is not something that many people want in a Summoner.
In most other FF games, FFXI included; the GF/Aion/Primal is the power (DPS/Support) behind the ability to actually summon. In XIV we give the mobs a terrible flu and then we blow them up with Akh Morn while the Egi chips away and is otherwise forgettable other then a few minor cooldowns (simplified).

[Khaidal]

Hi everyone. I'm fairly new to the game, so forgive me if this sounds stupid. After reading this thread, I have to ask if summoner is a fun job. I was thinking of trying it out, but after reading this thread, I'm having second thoughts. It sounds like it's pretty awful and boring to play.

[ColorOfSakura]

Honestly, the "Trance" system is more evocative of the actual "Summoner" job in Classic Final Fantasy than the Egis are. I mean, until FFX and FFXI, Summoners simply called upon beings to do one specific attack. Summons didn't stick around on the battlefield and fight with the party - they were called, their power was used, and they left. However, in an MMO setting it'd be too clunky or flashy to have an entire giant primal just SHOW UP to do one attack. In XI they had Avatars but XI wasn't terribly optimized as an MMO and its combat was much slower and menu based.

XIV's pet system seemed to be the devs listening to the playerbase about having a pet job (SMN/SCH) and while its worked well for Scholar, Summoner has just had people bitching about it endlessly because it isn't what they want. The Egis are too small, they're not detailed enough, there aren't enough of them. The OP totally missed what Yoshida was saying in the interview - the constant demands and complaints about Summoner can make the Dev Team feel like it was just a waste of time to even put the job in the game to begin with because no one is ever satisfied with what they do with the job. They try to make it pet based, people bitch. They try to move away from it being pet based into a more traditional "Summoner" role, and people bitch they aren't getting enough pets.

You don't get to have Summoner both ways. Its either a hardcore pet-based job that remains a pet-based job and any plans for "Avatars" or full sized Primals goes away (because rendering them would be a damn visual nightmare for anyone with lower end specs), or it becomes a more classic FF-style version of the Summoner, and the pets get pretty much relegated to turrets that deal extra damage to boost the Summoner's output.

I honestly prefer the Trance system and hope they expand on it with other Primals in the future. Using Deathflare is really cool looking, and its incredibly powerful. Using Teraflare as an LB3 is awesome. I feel like a Summoner when I do those things. Yeah, the Egis are neat, but I'd rather the Summoner end up with more powerful main abilities and flashy animations than just an ever expanding array of pets that become harder and harder to balance around.

[Tsumdere]

Hi everyone. I'm fairly new to the game, so forgive me if this sounds stupid. After reading this thread, I have to ask if summoner is a fun job. I was thinking of trying it out, but after reading this thread, I'm having second thoughts. It sounds like it's pretty awful and boring to play.

Personally, summoner is my favorite class. Sure, it doesn't play or feel like a summoner like Yuna from FFXIV, but it is still fun. It is really boring the first levels because you don't have important skills, but once you get over that curve it's amazing.

You should try it out~ There is no drawback to trying out new classes because you can always switch back.

[Silkerin]

Honestly, I think the problem with SMN boils down to the fact that we are the main damage dealers and the summon itself is a tag along, which is not something that many people want in a Summoner.
In most other FF games, FFXI included; the GF/Aion/Primal is the power (DPS/Support) behind the ability to actually summon. In XIV we give the mobs a terrible flu and then we blow them up with Akh Morn while the Egi chips away and is otherwise forgettable other then a few minor cooldowns (simplified).

this.

also, lore doesnt matter, at this point everyone knows we wont be able to summon a primal, what people are complaining about here as of the benchmark is the issue that smn isnt even remotely close to the summoners from the old game and seemingly going onanother route that is barely related to the source, so, what people want instead is a real pet job, the fact that smns pet is at most a higher damaging turret with 1 utility that might or might not be useful is the main issue.

channeling the primals aether for spells is fine, but if it becomes the main thing that evolves the summoner, it then become a blue mage/shaman/whatever, and that is far from the main thing that people who chose smn on 2.0 wanted, if they can make a mix of buffing/interacting the pet and channeling old primals in spells then it will be perfect, but as of now, we only have the channeling part, and none of the pet interaction aside the initial skills we got in 2.0, meanwhile sch got at least 1 skill that interacted with their pets in some way in both expansions.

if i am from a 3rd world country, and complain about the class that i like here, is it still a "first world problem"? anyway... these kinds of things if not voiced, they will for sure continue, but if it is mentioned there is at least a chance of they being addressed and maybe something will be done to resolve it.

[SendohJin]

I sometimes wonder exactly what playstyle Summoners are after.

Different people have different ideas. I'm in the get rid of all the pets and give us different trances camp.

[Duelle]

the constant demands and complaints about Summoner can make the Dev Team feel like it was just a waste of time to even put the job in the game to begin with because no one is ever satisfied with what they do with the job. They try to make it pet based, people bitch. They try to move away from it being pet based into a more traditional "Summoner" role, and people bitch they aren't getting enough pets.

I take issue with this, because sometimes the best approach is to fully flesh out your concept/implementation first and THEN add flashy new systems. The devs did with SMN what some have accused Sega of doing with Sonic the Hedgehog: doing a thing, and then abandoning it to reinvent the wheel instead of polishing and refining the design.

That's largely my beef with trances (aside from being VERY limited in terms of growth). I don't mind them in concept, but at least flesh out the damn pet system before you add them.

[Zojha]

I take issue with this, because sometimes the best approach is to fully flesh out your concept/implementation first and THEN add flashy new systems.

That's implying you still want your original concept/implementation in the first place. My interpretation of the whole thing is that they saw pets in action, didn't like them and then got stuck because they couldn't just remove them outright.

And it really does make sense not to flesh out a system you don't want to have anymore in the first place. You softly phase it out.