Why are summoners so neglected?

[Talraen]

This whole thread kind of reminds me of Red Mage debates in FFXI. Traditionalists wanted RDM to fight in melee, but the class was legitimately more effective as a straight ranged caster. It was not how "red mage" had ever worked in the series, but it worked in the game and a lot of people liked playing it. These days, many people have this (incorrect) conception of red mage as a support caster entirely because of FFXI.

In short, we have a summoner, whether we like that it's a "summoner" or not, and it is what it is. Calls to mechanically overhaul a viable and popular class are silly.

[Shougun]

You can't throw a stone without hitting a SMN at high levels. This class is quite literally THAT popular and fun to play...

You do realize that just because people play it doesn't mean they don't want to see a change right? Lots of Paladins, also lots of Paladins who are dying for AoE damage.

I wasn't really making it pet only job in my suggestions either, just changing it to have a lot more "primal" focus.

I would agree that it would be hard to gauge how many feel a certain way and to what degree, I doubt everyone agrees on the same thing added to that lol. Imo Summoner is popular because the idea of summons is cool, its inherently a big thing for FF and it does have excellent range (can solo well, as well as do nicely in parties).

[Silverquick]

You do realize that just because people play it doesn't mean they don't want to see a change right? Lots of Paladin's, also lots of Paladin's who are dying for AoE damage.

I wasn't really making it pet only job in my suggestions either, just changing it to have a lot more "primal" focus.

Well as I said... I agree with a thematic naming convention for abilities... and graffics type changes...

But any wholesale changes to its functionality is going to have the entire SMN community up in arms. It's literally that popular as is after the Heavensward changes.

It tells me the direction they moved in was the right one with Heavensward, and that was the thing people wanted out of the job. In other words, they made the right decision moving away from Pets.

[Shougun]

Well as I said... I agree with a thematic naming convention for abilities... and graffics type changes...

But any wholesale changes to its functionality is going to have the entire SMN community up in arms. It's literally that popular as is after the Heavensward changes.

It tells me the direction they moved in was the right one with Heavensward, and that was the thing people wanted out of the job. In other words, they made the right decision moving away from Pets.

I agree that changing things drastically would be bad, because there would naturally be people who enjoy it and then you just be like "HAHA JK" lol. Like back when SE was like "Fisher is just for fun, no gil now", that's not that cool.

I would still suggest minor changes though, but thats' what I was trying to do (minor in comparison to a job rework). Like bio becoming burn with Ifrit out, Bane dropping an Ifrit Plume, Bane Dropping a Titan sand, etc. I was actually trying to keep the play style very similar because I agree that drastic changes (while I like to think about them) are also very high chance to be morale swapping (new people super happy, other people super unhappy).

So while I like hearing the big changes I'd like to see a lot of nudges that please the most amount of people possible. Like I doubt very many would rage quit over the bio becoming burn, rasp, shock, Bane dropping primal plumes, Fester becoming another primal related move, but I know there are quite a few that would be happy about that. Giving players more reason to cycle their egi, and just a slightly larger egi pool (again I think Duelle made a good list of archetypes that aren't wasted, more than six becomes very difficult though - unless they're temporary burst summons and such).

I do have mechanical concerns about the current trance system, and thats besides just wanting changes.. like I just have concerns about the system itself, but others have also brought these up (and I don't believe the idea of trance has to be removed, just some modifications I think would help it live better and move forward smoother - as well as be less Bahamut only).

Don't think I'm trying to rip the rug underneath people, even though I like to imagine it ... lol , I'd like to move everyone (as many as possible) into the same happy place :P.

[Ririta]

My friend, seriously...

You can't throw a stone without hitting a SMN at high levels. This class is quite literally THAT popular and fun to play...

I hop into a Diadem party, its almost all SMN.

The Void Ark Series of raids? Again my last party was 3 SMN, 2 BLM, 1 BRD.

My last Alex Run? 2 SMN, 1 BLM, 1 DRG.

You guys are in the minority with this idea the Job needs some kind of overhaul.

Who you think would be whining if they did some kind of massive overhaul... the 20-30 wanting a "Pet Class" here?

Or the thousands that are spamming the upper tier content in enormous numbers currently playing the job as is and loving it?

From my experience there are many more black mages than summoners.

Also, being a MMORPG means there's stronger and weaker jobs, in 2.0 you'd almost never see warriors, does that means that people liked paladin more?

This whole thread kind of reminds me of Red Mage debates in FFXI. Traditionalists wanted RDM to fight in melee, but the class was legitimately more effective as a straight ranged caster. It was not how "red mage" had ever worked in the series, but it worked in the game and a lot of people liked playing it. These days, many people have this (incorrect) conception of red mage as a support caster entirely because of FFXI.

In short, we have a summoner, whether we like that it's a "summoner" or not, and it is what it is. Calls to mechanically overhaul a viable and popular class are silly.

Where did this "melee red mage" came from? In FFIII they sucked as melee and in FFV their only purpose in life was Dual Cast.

[NaesakiAshwell]

From my experience there are many more black mages than summoners.

I've noticed in many MMO's that people who love casting dps tend to more commonly flock to the one's that have constant burst as their primary source of damage, as people love to see big damage numbers. Whereas timed burst and dot management dps tend to fall a bit lower down, and well some might say Black Mage is possibly more iconic when you think of Final Fantasy as well.

[Nalien]

Well as I said... I agree with a thematic naming convention for abilities... and graffics type changes...

But any wholesale changes to its functionality is going to have the entire SMN community up in arms. It's literally that popular as is after the Heavensward changes.

I pretty much just want Bio/etc. to be renamed and their animations to involve summoning, but... Well... 4.0 is going to bring changes to Summoner one way or another... It's not going to get to Lv70 and be the exact same Job it is now... They're going to be making some adjustments... Prime time to actually fix the pets IMO, Contagion, and thus Garuda-Egi, have been dominating for far too long. It's about time the three pet types had some clearly defined purpose, similar to how Machinists two pets do. I don't think that would really impact the core Summoner experience as it currently stands, it would just provide a reason to use more than just Garuda-Egi...

[Silverquick]

From my experience there are many more black mages than summoners.

I'd like to be able to say that but I can't.

It not just my server either.

FFLogs alone shows me Summoner after Summoner in the high level content too. And mostly in the upper ranks of damagers even above BLMs.

So I already know it's not just my imagination with regards to Summoner Popularity.

[Talraen]

Where did this "melee red mage" came from? In FFIII they sucked as melee and in FFV their only purpose in life was Dual Cast.

Red mages use swords. They were the second-best melee weapon class in FF1 until the job change, since they could use silver/mythril swords, and they are actually good tanks for the first few quests because they can use chain armor. In FF3, red mages basically exist to use the wightslayer early on, which is another sword. In FF5, Dual Cast was something you got as a reward for leveling an obsolete class. It basically existed because Red Mages, as was the case in FF1 and FF3, sucked after you progressed very far in the game. For the brief period they were good, they had decent weapons as well as decent spells.

So yeah, red mages were always melee hybrid casters. This is even true in FFXI: they got the original en-spells. The only reason they didn't melee in FFXI was because feeding TP to mobs outweighed their contribution. They were clearly designed to melee (their artifact weapon is a sword!), but then, ninjas were designed to DPS, too. The FFXI team didn't have a huge success rate at jobs being played as intended.

[NaesakiAshwell]

I'd like to be able to say that but I can't.

It not just my server either.

FFLogs alone shows me Summoner after Summoner in the high level content too. And mostly in the upper ranks of damagers even above BLMs.

So I already know it's not just my imagination with regards to Summoner Popularity.

Wish I could say that for my data centre, I had 4 Dun Scaith in a row with me as the only summoner and tons of black mages or when I've been doing EX its a rare blue moon I'll see a fellow summoner in it. :c

Granted thats a small pool but even just when I've been playing normally I saw more blm's running about.