I Love 4.0 Summoner. A lot.

[RLofOBFL]

My thoughts on it are that It is fun actually. Until you realize the hoops you have to jump through for good dps...then it gets a lot less fun.

[RaizeGraymalkin]

Ahk Morn needed to have it's own unique animation instead of just being copy/paste Death Flare. It should've been even bigger and flashier. It's not like you guys get to use it super often. Meanwhile on Samurai I get to use Midare like every eight global cooldowns, if I so desire. That seems a bit unfair (I say this as a SAM main currently).

[Shiroe]

Ahk Morn needed to have it's own unique animation instead of just being copy/paste Death Flare. It should've been even bigger and flashier. It's not like you guys get to use it super often. Meanwhile on Samurai I get to use Midare like every eight global cooldowns, if I so desire. That seems a bit unfair (I say this as a SAM main currently).

Ahk Morn could really look a bit more impressive or make Demi-Bahamut glow or change colour when executing it

(imo so could the samurai 800 potency move,... could look a bit flashier and be longer animated)

especially since Ahk Morn has such a lonh build up, the "visual" reward could be better..., even if summoning Demi-Bahamut is (part) of the reward

[Tahldon]

The 4.0 changes to Summoner genuinely are a step in the right direction for me. The focus on poison based DoT's and Egi that barely resemble their Primal counterparts were always things I openly critiqued, despite my love for the job.

I might not be illustrating my thoughts properly. I have no qualms with the fact that the Devs added Bahamut as a summon to SMN. I am perfectly fine with this.

However, what I take issue with is that they took the job from the nice, flexible flow it had and turned it into this burst-y, lockout-juggling, phase-shifting job that is completely unlike what it was before. They significantly sped everything up. I suppose they wanted to cut down on the amount of Ruin casts or something... but to that effect I have two issues.

The slower paced pre-4.0 SMN gameplay was enough that while doing all of my actions (dotting and what-have-you), I could freely control my pet, timing their actions with my own, filling in the time with other spells, ability, or repositioning that I was not entirely hindered by their cast times.

This new 4.0 SMN seems as though the pacing is so much faster that the pet control (with the legacy timing) just seems far too slow and impedes the speed they were trying to gain for the job. I say, personally, that's why pets suddenly feel so much more clunky. The job got sped up but the pets got left behind.

The methodical flow the job had between itself and the pet actions (and player actions in controlling the pet) are all now tripping over one another. But let me say that I completely endorse the implementation of Bahamut, but he needs work, himself. Why no Wyrmwave auto attack? Why is he so close and why does he move when I move if he can hit Othard from Eorzea? Did the devs plan for players to just toss a mitigation ability (Addle) to force a Wyrmwave and the enemy didn't need the mitigation at the specified time? If so, that is very strange by design.

It feels like SMN, as a job along with its pet, is trying to do Salsa dancing to Meringue music when before it was a nice, graceful Bachata.

I know there are SMNs out there who are just riding it out or making it work, but still.

[TheMazrem]

Bahamut needs to be placed like you place Shadow Flare. Give us the ability to pick where he appears, duct tape his ass there, and make him stay in that spot until he goes away. That would solve at least some of the issues with him.

[SoloWingMetatron]

I might not be illustrating my thoughts properly. I have no qualms with the fact that the Devs added Bahamut as a summon to SMN. I am perfectly fine with this.

However, what I take issue with is that they took the job from the nice, flexible flow it had and turned it into this burst-y, lockout-juggling, phase-shifting job that is completely unlike what it was before. They significantly sped everything up. I suppose they wanted to cut down on the amount of Ruin casts or something... but to that effect I have two issues.

The slower paced pre-4.0 SMN gameplay was enough that while doing all of my actions (dotting and what-have-you), I could freely control my pet, timing their actions with my own, filling in the time with other spells, ability, or repositioning that I was not entirely hindered by their cast times.

This new 4.0 SMN seems as though the pacing is so much faster that the pet control (with the legacy timing) just seems far too slow and impedes the speed they were trying to gain for the job. I say, personally, that's why pets suddenly feel so much more clunky. The job got sped up but the pets got left behind.

The methodical flow the job had between itself and the pet actions (and player actions in controlling the pet) are all now tripping over one another. But let me say that I completely endorse the implementation of Bahamut, but he needs work, himself. Why no Wyrmwave auto attack? Why is he so close and why does he move when I move if he can hit Othard from Eorzea? Did the devs plan for players to just toss a mitigation ability (Addle) to force a Wyrmwave and the enemy didn't need the mitigation at the specified time? If so, that is very strange by design.

It feels like SMN, as a job along with its pet, is trying to do Salsa dancing to Meringue music when before it was a nice, graceful Bachata.

I know there are SMNs out there who are just riding it out or making it work, but still.

Ahh ok I totally understand your point of view, and actually agree with what you say. It's a very valid point.

My approach to the 4.0 situation I guess is that of the optimist. I choose to enjoy these changes from the visual and lore perspective, rather than that of the mechanical and numbers perspective. So when I said it was a step in the right direction for me. I meant it as Summoner acquiring a new powerful, full Primal summon. Rather than yet another chicken nugget/jelly bean lol.

But as I say mechanically and numbers wise I totally agree. I just didn't want to focus on those aspects as a number of people have hit that nail on the head already. So wanted to take a moment to voice the aspects I do like. Even if those aspects are indeed just superficial visuals. Visuals are important after all.

[Mapleine]

My issue remains that I don't want a Warlock, which is literally what this class continues to be a bootleg version of. Its like traveling through time if you also play WoW to anticipate the kind of stuff they're going to do because they've backed themselves into a corner with Summoner by rushing it in at the last minute and taking literally every ability from Warlock.

I don't get why this game can get everything Final Fantasy so right but can't get the most iconic job sorted. Summoner should have never come during ARR, it was way too complicated to fit into a launch framework and they should have known better.

Summoner can't even call Shiva or Ramuh or Leviathan for crying out loud, not that the Imp, Voidwalker and Felguard-er, excuse me "Garuda", "Titan" and "Ifrit "are designed to be properly usable. The Bahamut obsession is also getting old. Their Limit Break 3 should be about calling in Bahamut for Megaflare and thats about it. We should have flashy, full size Summons and we easily could if the class was, as it should be: based around calling a variety of Summons for a high potency, 3-4 second animation every 20 seconds for their a cast of Diamond Dust , Tidal Wave, etc.

Suggestion: Pull Summoner off of Arcanist, modify Arcanist to better suit Scholar and redo Summoner. I usually detest people who wishlist like some full class/job redesign but this is the first time it's genuinely been needed.

[SoloWingMetatron]

My issue remains that I don't want a Warlock, which is literally what this class continues to be a bootleg version of. Its like traveling through time if you also play WoW to anticipate the kind of stuff they're going to do because they've backed themselves into a corner with Summoner by rushing it in at the last minute and taking literally every ability from Warlock.

I definitely agree with this. Even Dreadwyrm Trance was a direct copy of Demonology Warlock's Metamorphosis ability. Of course that now belongs to Demon Hunter, but nevertheless. Though basing the job off Warlock is not inherently a bad thing. SE has just done a bad job off it in some areas.

Honestly I don't think the issue lies with specific job based mechanics. But rather the game play mechanics as a whole. FF14 has the most linear and rudimentary game play I have ever seen in any MMO ever. It's almost like the FF13 of MMO's in terms of how linear the game play is. Which I personally think is very foolish of the devs. The word linear should never be used to describe any part of an MMO. Yet almost everything about FF14 is linear (apart from the actual environment zones). Everyone who plays a certain job will just be a proverbial "copy/paste" of another person who plays the same job. That is because there will only ever be one rotation to do, with the same abilities to do. One gear set to get, one weapon to get. One way to meld. There is no room for customization or trying new things out. As a result any and all jobs will always lack depth. Which is the real reason why SMN still only has 3 Egi and has to get the rest via glamours. There is no room for new pet types. There is no room for an elemental wheel. There is no room for anything beyond the baseline, rudimentary system we have. Which is what's forcing SMN into this corner in the first place.

It's not SMN that needs an overhaul. It's the entire combat based game play (job progression, skill progression, gear progression, etc) that needs an overhaul.

[Tahldon]

Suggestion: Pull Summoner off of Arcanist,

It's not SMN that needs an overhaul. It's the entire combat based game play (job progression, skill progression, gear progression, etc) that needs an overhaul.

In circling back around to what Yoshi P said when he was regarding RDM (of which I am very roughly paraphrasing), he said that they had to re-imagine the job to fit within the world (and combat system) of FFXIV. Applying that same logic to SMN, I am highly dubious that either of these would happen. They would probably be considered, but with a low probability of actual realization.

Arcanist, as a class has always been an experiment. Anyone can tell this in the fashion that ARC is the only class that splits into two jobs (SCH & SMN). It seemed like a direction that the Devs were going to take at one point but that notion was abandoned and yet ARC still survives as the living experiment of an idea from days past. SMN has always been a sort of bastardization of the idea of bringing in Primals to the point to where Yoshi P and the team couldn't support the ideas of bringing in all Primals (or at least the base few) as Egis, hence an entire system was designed to fill the void in the Egi-Glamour system.

IF the Devs had the resources and shirked the content delivery schedule to kill ARC and split these two into their own separate jobs, I would be excited; however, in the current climate of production and resources, I don't think that would ever happen. Feasibility is so low that I, myself, don't even bother recommending the notion as an option and accept SMN as it is (was).

The idea of creating new jobs out-of-the-blue is such a daunting task that Yoshi P and company cite "death" when it's brought up. In killing the old idea of ARC -> SCH/SMN and making it just ARC -> SCH then creating SMN as a new job wholely unto itself would be in that same category as when they created and introduced NIN. Yoshi P continues to cite how they would never do that again along with the introduction of 3 jobs in the fashion that they did MCH, DRK, and AST hence why we have just RDM and SAM for this expac.

It's an insanely far reach for them to do that, especially when there are "several layers of skin that's grown over the band-aid" (sorry if that sounds gross), in that the Egi-glamour system for SMN, the ability crossover, the leveling of one class into two (because how do you split them and give people who already leveled it the exp?), all of the gear (and weapons) that have been created, and so forth. Even from a player's perspective, I could see that being an absolute mess to deal with development-wise.

So I suspect that SMN's zombified body will continue to be dragged along as a relic of an idea from days past that didn't get implemented exactly how the team thought it would be. SMNs can live now, but they'll forever be scratching at the area where that bandaid is despite not being able to see it or not know why they're itching so badly.

Would I be for a re-development of the class and job? Sure. I'm down for Ifrit, Garuda, Titan, Shiva, Ramuh, Leviathan, and Bahamut summons much in the fashion that they pop down for a while, you control a few (much like Bahamut right now) and the others you just channel and cast their abilities (for example: Instead of casting Ruin, during your cast, the aetherial form of Ifrit lingers over you like when you go to DWT, and you cast him doing his inferno dash attack, Instead of Ruin 2, same thing but with Garuda throwing a Friction tornado out, Titan's Tumult could be the AOE attack, things of that nature).

Though... that sounds a lot like a BLU than a SMN but yeah...

But, it's a long stretch on a short line and I just don't see Yoshi-P doing it as it'd cut heavily into their current schedule and the manpower just isn't there. I think we're better off just asking them to move some numbers around. SMN is in too deep.

[SoloWingMetatron]

But, it's a long stretch on a short line and I just don't see Yoshi-P doing it as it'd cut heavily into their current schedule and the manpower just isn't there. I think we're better off just asking them to move some numbers around. SMN is in too deep.

Oh yeah for sure. I'm under no illusion that FF14 will not continue to be a soulless game. It may look pretty and have a pretty solid story (by MMO standards) But the world itself in terms of game play is dead. Everything dies and becomes forgotten in this game (Diadem is the perfect example of this. Which has died twice now. Or any previous gear set, or any previous EX Primal weapons, or any previous Relic weapon) It will always be this way, and SMN will always be one of the things that suffers most from this kind of game type, because it is a job that requires depth and variety by its very nature. Hopefully far down the line the linear nature of the game can be addressed and SMN can finally flourish. But until then I'm just going to try and enjoy SMN and the game for what it is. Even though both could be so much more!