Why are summoners so neglected?

[Silverquick]

Effectiveness would be incorrect if what I suggested existed, since a good summoner would be hitting the niche more often with relative minimal change in setup/rotation (pick the right Egi and continue on as normal) - Atlaworks is correct in asserting it is simply more toys and an an unrivaled amount of flexibility. But.. you can like the current version all you want that's fine, I'm not even trying to destroy it (if anything people should be worried that I'm making it good at way too many things, like Atlas lol).

Dude.... seriously here... did you even know about the LONG delay between the time you issue a pet command and the time they actually perform it?

Yeah its a good 5-10 second delay depending on what the pet is actually doing.

Above I talked about Garuda's Contagion... you literally have to go do something else until the pet gets around to doing it. Then when it finally does, THEN you can continue your normal rotation.

This interface or pet design isn't very responsive, and it never has been.

Do you know about the delay between Enkindle and the time it takes for the actual power to go off? Or what happens when the mob dies before it does?

Yeah you're left with a blank... used power.... that never went off.... and goes into CD for the next 3 minutes.

THAT is the reality of the pet system in this game... it's not very functional unless you put it on auto (Sic)... otherwise you fight the interface constantly just to get it to do anything.

[Shougun]

Dude.... seriously here... did you even know about the LONG delay between the time you issue a pet command and the time they actually perform it?

Yeah its a good 5-10 second delay depending on what the pet is actually doing.

Above I talked about Garuda's Contagion... you literally have to go do something else until the pet gets around to doing it. Then when it finally does, THEN you can continue your normal rotation.

This interface or pet design isn't very responsive, and it never has been.

Do you know about the delay between Enkindle and the time it takes for the actual power to go off? Or what happens when the mob dies before it does?

Yeah you're left with a blank... used power.... that never went off.... and goes into CD for the next 3 minutes.

THAT is the reality of the pet system in this game... it's not very functional unless you put it on auto (Sic)... otherwise you fight the interface constantly just to get it to do anything.

Sounds like you just described a very real issue and a good point where SE can make Summoner better, without changing it drastically.

And yeah, I am also annoyed by that delay lol. My other MMO experience tells me that I shouldn't have to tolerate it.. so it drives me mad that I do XD.

[Mhaeric]

That's the reason I use Tri-Disaster later in a fight
.

But using tri-disaster earlier makes it available again sooner, and in an opener the overall duration of dots applied is the same just with more time spent with higher potency dots. Im not getting this logic of saving tridisaster until the end of the opener since the opener takes the same time to execute, ends up outputting less dps, and tridisaster ends up on cooldown for longer. The only thing being delayed is contagion, and that's best used when you're getting a 30% boost (you left out raging strikes) to your dots so it's not a loss.

Just talking about single target fights. AoE trash I usually just open with tridisaster since, unless the other dps is low output, everything is dead before needing to refresh dots anyway and that let's me get to the burst faster.

[Silverquick]

But using tri-disaster earlier makes it available again sooner, and in an opener the overall duration of dots applied is the same just with more time spent with higher potency dots. Im not getting this logic of saving tridisaster until the end of the opener since the opener takes the same time to execute, ends up outputting less dps, and tridisaster ends up on cooldown for longer. The only thing being delayed is contagion, and that's best used when you're getting a 30% boost (you left out raging strikes) to your dots so it's not a loss.

Ahh but here you and I are going to sit and split hairs... but for the record...

How often can you go into DWT? Well that's how often you can use Tri-Disaster...

So this ends up being the choice of the Summoner... and the situation and an honest question and gray area.

Do you use Tri-Disaster during the key moment when you can squeeze 10% more damage out of your DoTs and risk having them drop and have no damage on target after that?

OR... do you play it safe and use it during heavy mechanic while you're dodging Boss Mob AoEs and can't refresh your DoTs so you DO keep 100% damage on target?

Again this is a Summoner hard question, and can only be left up to the individual Summoner, and the situational combat he is in.

So while your question is valid... always remember... theory and reality can be two different things. I won't judge you on how you decide to play that given scenario as I wouldn't judge anyone, as this one comes down to the Summoner and whether he can afford to risk it or not in any given combat.

[Mhaeric]

Im talking about an opener, not the mid-fight. There is no difference between our methods in terms of time spent and overall duration of the 2 rounds of dots applied. Only in output and the cd remaining on two abimities. Once he opener is done, smn is definitely much more organic and requires adjustments on the fly. Bit the opener is generally fixed.

[Ririta]

Oh, no, just to rouse your ire as always. Unless you have a better idea? You do, don't you. You made this 46 page long topic, after all. What is "balance" to you? Or, since you disdain it so, do you care about a balanced summoner? Would you just prefer to have your 6 egis and dreadwyrm trance and ruin 3 and healing and tanking too? I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to fix this problem you've both created and revived this topic for.

Balance is making sure that every job can clear content and be useful. Our current summoner is just a collection of balancing shortcuts, adding an evoker and then taking the same shortcuts again won't solve anything.

I guarantee you Enochian was ten times harder to balance than anything that summoner received, as you can see by the Thunder and Astral Fire tweaks, it wasn't just a simple case of raising/lowering potency (which is how summoner got balanced to its current state). Regardless of how people might think of it, we all have to admit that it was a very creative way to make Fire and Ice IV possible. If such work can be done with black magic, why not with summons?

As for ideas people have been throwing them all over this thread along with mine (giving each egi an unique party buff/debuff, though there are better ones), but it would take work. The question is, do they want to have such work? It's certainly easier to just add Ruin IV to spam during Dreadwyrm Trance.

that's basically what everyone who accepts Wanderer's Minuet as a mechanic is saying.

I could tell that ability was bs the moment I saw it

[Silverquick]

Balance is making sure that every job can clear content and be useful. Our current summoner is just a collection of balancing shortcuts, adding an evoker and then taking the same shortcuts again won't solve anything.

This makes the assumption anything NEEDs to be solved in the first place.

Might I remind you Summoner is already a very popular, fun, and powerful job currently as it stands...

So the question of "Needs" to be solved... is a questionable basis in the first place.

[Mhaeric]

The summoner sucks crowd are a vocal minority. Are there things that might be improved, such as pet responsiveness and visual impact? Sure. But broken, the job is not. Different than what some people might want? That's a given no matter what it is. In 2.0 that claim had some merit since smn was underwhelming with only dots and a couple of dot exploits, but 3.0 changed it into a more than viable job.

P.S. when FFXlX.V:Online comes out and SMN is different people will be pointing at this game as what makes a traditional summoner. "What do you mean my summoner doesn't have any dots?! Where is my true summoner SE?!". Just some perspective.

[Ririta]

P.S. when FFXlX.V:Online comes out and SMN is different people will be pointing at this game as what makes a traditional summoner. "What do you mean my summoner doesn't have any dots?! Where is my true summoner SE?!". Just some perspective.

No one is pointing at XI and calling it a "traditional summoner"

This makes the assumption anything NEEDs to be solved in the first place.

Might I remind you Summoner is already a very popular, fun, and powerful job currently as it stands...

So the question of "Needs" to be solved... is a questionable basis in the first place.

It's just a vocal minority, an inexistent problem that Yoshida just randomly decided to address.

[Silverquick]

Im talking about an opener, not the mid-fight. There is no difference between our methods in terms of time spent and overall duration of the 2 rounds of dots applied. Only in output and the cd remaining on two abimities. Once he opener is done, smn is definitely much more organic and requires adjustments on the fly. Bit the opener is generally fixed.

Ok man fair enough,

For the record I did indeed try it your way...

but had the problem of the DoTs dropping off shortly after that and losing major DPS because my DoTs dropped off and I was unable to get them back up due to dodging mechanics... and Tri-Disaster was on cooldown. I shortly discovered it has a full one minute cooldown and even with Contagion on the DoTs its only 30 seconds before you start to lose them.

So the tactic you are talking about is situational. Hence why I never tell anyone to do it that way... and just say... look its a gray area. Sometimes you can do your rotation that way, sometimes you can't.

I wouldn't have said what I said, if I already didn't know the consequences... for taking that risk.

And also for the record... you and I do see the SMN issues the same way.