Can smn be reworked into what Demonolgy Locks are?

[Airget]

XIV currently has 3 "pet" classes, 2 of which are from the same class. If we think about their concepts I'd say currently only SCH and MCH should have HP. MCH because for them it's no issue having to throw a turret back out if it goes down, SMN on the otherhand uses MP. As for SCH, their pet heals, so they need HP otherwise that would just be OP.

As for SMN though death to them means sacrificing a lot of MP to bring them back and even then when you get to the nitty gritty, what does a SMN's pet do that's interesting? Contagion is like the only ability that seems to do anything remotely interesting. So honestly, scrap SMN pets having HP and instead give them Aura's that effect the SMN in some way and these Aura would be the new Devotion effect.

Off top of head let's just say when you summon Titan, SMN gets dmg reduction, when Garuda is out, regen, when Ifrit is out DPS increase. When Devotion is used that AoE aura gives those following effects to all in range of the pet, so pet placement would become important for SMN, could treat it like a totem.

As for their "auto-attack" they no longer auto-attack, instead they all act like Summon bahamut, only acting when the SMN performs an action whether it be Ruin, Bio, Energy Drain, Fester etc under the same 1.5 second cooldown.

So pretty much you condense SMN pet actions to their Aura Trait, their auto-attack activated via SMN action and their Enkindle. Keep it that simple. When a pet is summoned it's treated as an effect on the SMN, they can instantly swap between pets but there is a 10 recast before being able to change pet again. Currently I'd say keep the Enkindle effects the same and maybe add a new effect to Dreadwyrm Trance that augments the Aura Trait when in said trance. Titan Trance could add dmg dealt -5% on target, Ifrit could add a DoT to target being attacked during Trance and Garuda let's say makes all Ruin spells instant cast. During Dreadwyrm Trance you wouldn't be able to change your pet, so you would need to decide beforehand which you want to use.

As for Bahamut Summon maybe keep it as is, but in all honesty I can see why SMN is a tricky beast to mess with. There is a severe lack of direction in the job, dots, pet, single target dmg, trance, summon bamaut, it just comes off as hard to syergize. I"d like to see what they do with it but honestly I do think when you compared them to the other pet jobs, they may have to remove the physical nature of the pets and just make them visible effects that add to their dmg rather than target-able creatures.

[LineageRazor]

Definitely some interesting ideas in this thread. I seriously doubt SE will EVER give SMN the kind of overhaul that most of them require, but it's fun to dream! I particularly liked the idea of SMN summoning short-lived pets as part of a DPS rotation. To me, that'd make SMN feel more like a Summoner than even the so-called classic Summoners were.

Because, frankly, those old-school Summoners were little more than BLMs with a pretty coat of paint. I was pretty darned disappointed when it dawned on me that Rydia's summons, while pretty, were basically identical to Black mage nukes, just with bigger damage and a bigger MP cost. Given that Blizzard III would take care of trash mobs just as effectively and much more cheaply, late in the game I found I was hardly ever summoning at all. I feel like summon->boom->leave would make for a pretty bland job in a MMO.

That said, the pet-style Summoner in this game just isn't working very well. They are difficult to maintain, lack variety, and don't do anything particularly interesting. I wouldn't mind a change of some kind. SO not gonna happen, though!

[Averax]

Honestly, I would prefer if SMN wasn't even a pet class.

"Hey, you're a summoner? What do you summon?"

"...disappointment"

[Kazrah]

Real issue I think is that there are too many mechanical themes put into it (dots, pet, direct damage) that I think in the long run, devs just need to pick one theme and focus far more on it than any other in the job, even if it means having to completely scrap them if deemed necessary. BRD and MCH I think have this struggle as well, but I think that problem with those two jobs haven't been as bad.

Also feels like I have to point out that the 4.06 adjustment tells me that either more fixes can't be brought in until 4.1 or devs have just gotten fed up with consistently whiny SMN players.

[Verius_Nox]

Yeah, I suppose it'd be a step up from what SMN's do now by being able to summon tiny imp dudes and a couple dogs, but demo locks have such a boring rotation. Summon, empower, summon, empower, etc

[JisKing98]

They could do what they do in all final fantasy games? Summon an actual primal(not egi versions) that show up do something remarkable and then go away.

Then what would the summoner do afterwards? just spam ruin spells like they are currently doing? With this they actually are summoning the big primals to do a attack then weaving in spells that summon other beings to do dmg as well.

[RichardButte]

SMN

wasn't even a pet class

If pets were temporary and you were encouraged to maintain a rotation of them, it would resolve these issues neatly. A 20 second Garuda has no need for positioning or survivability. She is much like a summon in the old FFs, especially if she makes a burst attack when she expires.

Summoner gameplay could revolve around rotating pets until you build enough to bring out a Bahamut out for that one big Akh Morne boom.

This is exactly what SMN should've been from the start.

Demo lock was crazy fun when I played it. It was all about increasing the power of your direct damage spells by having as many demons out as possible.

The bigger your swarm, the more damage you did, but each member of your swarm only showed up and attacked for ~12 seconds or so, meaning you had to seriously get the lead out in order to maximize your damage, getting the biggest number of pets out there as possible before using your strongest abilities.

And every 3 mins or so, you summoned a bigger demon that was the pinnacle of your rotation.

SMN could work in exactly this fashion: repeatedly summon smaller primal egis until you can summon the Bahamut egi for a big burst of damage.

[TankHunter678]

Then what would the summoner do afterwards? just spam ruin spells like they are currently doing? With this they actually are summoning the big primals to do a attack then weaving in spells that summon other beings to do dmg as well.

Personally I would like to see SMN broken off from Arcanist entirely.

Then give them spells with a thematic that fits the primals under their command that fill up the gauge to summon the related primal for a big attack on the target. So that they are effectively rotating in build up for a sustained chain of primal summons that build up to a Bahamut finisher.

The "pets" are disappointments anyways, and when they go down the slow down everything the SMN can do at the moment and rob them of emergency utility.

[Apoptomon]

I (personally) really liked SMN's 2.x/3.x incarnation and would much rather it moved back towards that than in the apparent 4.0 direction.

[Aomine1992]

SMN has never actually been a Summoner until DWT was a thing and became more of a Summoner with Bahamut even though his autos are a hot mess lol but honestly that should have been the direction they went from the start...SE doesn't deserve pet classes until they learn how to actually have a pet class I mean why does pets die from like a couple aoes lol and this game is all about raid dmg and unavoidable stuff *face palm* and we all know pets don't respond to anything :/