I Love 4.0 Summoner. A lot.

[TsundereImouto]

Hi, Tsundere Imouto here.

I've been looking for a job in this game that isn't just auto-combos and set rotations. I wanted a job that takes awareness and true resource management. I wanted a job that felt like there was always something better I could be doing. I played SMN in 3.0 because it was the closest thing to that, but it was still pretty straightforward once you started to understand it.

A lot of people have called 4.0 Summoner clunky, and to be fair to them, it is. Skills are seemingly arbitrarily locked behind other skills (rouse and bahamut, aetherflow and dreadwyrm trance). However, I see this as things that you can do correctly and incorrectly. If you fail to account for any of these things in advance, you are punished for them. Summoner now requires forethought, planning, intense management of your resources and knowledge of the fight timings. In short, it feels like when I make a correct or incorrect decision on Summoner, it makes a tangible difference.

One complaint I will address here is that Summoner's don't feel like a true pet class, because your pet is simply following your orders. A lot of people have also had the complaint that Bahamut is stupid because he just sits there if you are stunned. I do not understand these people. Bahamut, to me, is a very interesting pet to manage and work with. When I summon Bahamut, it feels like he and I are fighting together; I meaningfully change the way that I play Summoner when Bahamut is active, by reserving "off global cooldown" abilities and using them one by one to eke more Wyrmwaves out of him. Bahamut is cool because I have to plan in advance and work to get him to deal maximum damage; if he just flew in and did a big akh morn and left, it would be boring. As it is now, there are tons of things to think about with him, especially when you take AoE phases into account.

There are some things I would change about Summoner. Pets are unresponsive to no fault of the player, and this needs to change. Enkindle can currently be desynchronized from Rouse if you get too many Ruin IV procs to no fault of the player. There are others, too, but I consider these things managable next to the gratifying challenge of playing the class correctly.

I felt like making this post as a dissent to the common opinion here. Personally, I feel like Summoner is weak and undertuned numerically compared to Red Mage and post-buff Black Mage, but I find playing Summoner very fun nonetheless. I honestly think more jobs should be like Summoner; one of the reasons I haven't played Red Mage is because it's so simple and straightforward, I could learn it in a single day and mostly understand all of what was important and what I should do. People say it "flows well," but to me, you're never making any interesting decisions, so I don't understand what people mean by that. Does it flow well because the next thing you should do is always obvious?

Summoner is cool. Unlike the other casters, your mana management actually means something important, and you are encouraged with your options to save whenever you can and refrain from overflowing. Unlike the other jobs in the game, your Global Cooldown abilities are very straightforward; you put your DoTs on and Ruin. But your off global cooldowns and the time-flexible resources they're attached to (bahamut, aetherflow) are really cool because you can save them for big DPS windows and try to maximize their effectiveness under effects like trick attack, potion, contagion, etc. Summoner encourages you to watch everything and think about when you are using it, as opposed to jobs like Samurai who have maybe 2 or 3 things to watch, and a shallow flowchart of what to do depending on what is off cooldown.

So, thank you for making a Job that is challenging in ways that push me to always try to be better and get more out of it. I know I am not representative of the whole; many people dislike that Summoner has become so difficult to keep track of. I really enjoy challenges and I think that Summoner is very engaging in that right. Thanks for reading my post.

[Ashbury]

I think summoner is fun as well, but it has a lot of little nuances that just chip at you until you get frustrated with the job.

Bahamut being dependant of your actions is ok with me but he should really plant his fat ass in one place and do his thing if the summoner is in combat. There is no reason for him to follow you and miss Wyrmwaves because he has to pioritize moving instead of attacking. He is completely immune to damage and has a range of 100y, he doesn't need to move.

Another problem with summoner is that the job is really anti-progression. When you tend to die during raid progression (it happens a lot until you learn the fight) you lose your resources and a huge chunch of your damage. If a red mage dies he loses his White/Black mana but that does not compare to summoner losing aetherflows/attunement. A BLM don't even have to worry about mana.

[Neela]

+1 thx for mindreading ^^

just jumped in to quote the mother of the dragons:

"When my dragons are grown, we will take back what was stolen from me and destroy those who wronged me! We will lay waste to armies and burn cities savage to the ground!"

one day...

[Lastelli]

I think SMN is fine as well...almost.
You should be able to choose your target for devotion, demi bahamut should be smaller and shouldn't move and finally it needs a slight single target dps buff, but the rest is ok as is.

[TsundereImouto]

I agree with the replies asking for quality of life changes. Summoner is still rough around the edges, especially in terms of usability. My initial post was commenting on the core gameplay of the class. While things like bahamut moving, the summoner dying, and pet responsiveness are annoyances, I don't believe they are big enough problems that they spoil the design of the job, at least for me.

[Yayamaru]

It's actually a very deep class in terms of design. SE is actually moving in the right direction to changing the class into more burst and main character orientated if they can't fix the sluggishness issue of pets. Which is why Bahamut only attacks when SMN attacks. Just need a fix to stop bahamut from following and be more responsive. Best if they can even redesign pets into actual spells instead of microable pets which SE have no plans to fix the sluggishness of them. SE is just not ready to design a pet class at the moment.

Lining up contagion before applying DoTs or summoning bahamut is really really bad though. Compared to 3.0 contagion that extends DoTs duration which you don't really need to care about the responsiveness of Garuda. I just give up and go Ifrit instead.

Numbers just need to be tuned up and QoL fixes. Another fix that should be mentioned is changing the unforgiving death mechanics. My suggestion is let SMN keep their aetherflow gauge even after they die.

Another issue is this class is actually the most boring job at <50. Even SCH has the same number of offensive spells as SMN on top of defensive spells. It's not really a big issue but it might affect new players playing it. A quick fix to alleviate the issue might be just shifting painflare to before 50.

[TsundereImouto]

snip

Try lining contagion up properly once and putting garuda on sic. I know it's taboo to suggest that, but after you line it up properly once you want to use it on cd anyways, and garuda is much better about casting it fast herself than when you order her to do it.

Agreed about low level SMN. Terrible, terrible experience. I hate it every single time i'm forced to do it. The fact that the job isn't remotely enjoyable until the high 60s is just sad.

[SoloWingMetatron]

I also love the 4.0 Summoner! I think the changes have brought Summoner more in line with what the job is and always has been about. Summoning! Demi-Bahamut is the epitome of what a proper Summon should be! I definitely agree the job is a little rough around the edges. But most of that is simple QoL changes and number buffs. I would also love for Sustain to return. But other than that Summoner has made a massive leap in the right direction in terms of job identity and Summoning!

[Schondetta]

We just have different ideas of what is fun. There's nothing wrong with that . if you enjoy playing a game that feels like your thrown into a jetplane cockpit thats fine and dandy. There's a fine line between what your saying and than something being convoluted and neglected.which SMN is. We only complain because we wamt it to be better .excepting content that is subpar is inexcusable .

[programcanaan]

Ifrit Egi does seem like the better option to me now.
Inferno is already 250 potency higher than Aerial Blast. And contagion will only add 240 potency to your first Tri-Disaster(and that's with Bio III and Miasma III). Add a Rouse to that and you'll have 900 Mob potency with no percentile dropoff.
His AoE and Singluar attacks are stronger
Radiant shield can apply physical weakness to enemies and will do some damage
He will use Crimson Cyclone often because he's always in melee range. Giving more further ruination chances because Garuda doesn't always use shockwave(plus it can be annoying).
He's a bit more sturdy

In terms of performance the two have never been closer. It may be a matter of party composition now. Before 4.0 Garuda was undeniably superior (mostly for AoEs) but it is certainly not the case anymore.

Summoner is much better at single fights now. But I feel their mob damage suffered for it. We need sustain for pet and maybe and an extra AoE for mob damage. How about Wither from their old PvP set and give it a casting bar?