Dusting off the Tome: Summoner Feedback for 4.1

[CreinCrein]

Hey I miss cast bars

[zuzu-bq]

About the "not feeling like Summoner" people keep saying since ARR. I got it, but now you actually have a temporary big summon to do mid fight. Wasn't that the most required Summon-like aspect? Just actually trying to understand it here. I also felt SMN wasn't very Summonery previosuly but I just accepted it as how it worked to implement it on the game. Kind of like how Red Mage isn't exectly the iconic hybrid job. I think people would feel a lot more the Summoner feel if they finally implemented the ever promissed never delivered Egi glamours "every patch after Stormblood" heh. As for the dot-job, they kind of had already been dethroned on that by BRD, but I understand how people feel about the loss on dot management aspect. If anything, this loss made the job a bit less easy to understand going from 0 because the whole game used to be "never clip dots" and now you can use dot clipping for gains. But I also think a new player might not have as many issues as we have with these stuff, we mostly have them because we been following the game for a while and adapting some times can take a while.

I found threads discussing it, but not a single post of people wanting casts bars and losing their mobility.

Anyone that fails to see BRD had close to free mobility on HW can't ever understand why cast bars weren't bad. While I do agree no cast bars feels better to play, cast bars were not a bad design by themselves. And like I said, the "right" is appeasing this majority that like without cast bars so yeah SE was right on removing them. But oh sorry I forgot it's a taboo to have a slightly unpopular opinion here. While most feedback on OF of Bard have been about being glad on the loss of cast bars, people in other medias and in game do miss it, but most of them are ok with it and don't think its worth to complain about it. Its like what Kumi said about adapting even to aspects you didn't like that much.

[Ariomi]

Anyone that fails to see BRD had close to free mobility on HW can't ever understand why cast bars weren't bad. While I do agree no cast bars feels better to play, cast bars were not a bad design by themselves. And like I said, the "right" is appeasing this majority that like without cast bars so yeah SE was right on removing them. But oh sorry I forgot it's a taboo to have a slightly unpopular opinion here. While most feedback on OF of Bard have been about being glad on the loss of cast bars, people in other medias and in game do miss it, but most of them are ok with it and don't think its worth to complain about it. Its like what Kumi said about adapting even to aspects you didn't like that much.

There's one problem with your logic here. Bard never started out as a class with hotbars. From 0-50 Castbars weren't a thing that existed. And when Heavensward happened, the gameplay change was such drastically different, that it caused an uproar. The class that everyone had until 50 became fundamentally different. And not everyone knew about using Feint for mobility. Eventually Square Fenix fixed this, by removing cast bars from Machinist and Bard.

This can also be said exactly in the same case for Summoner. Suddenly Summoner only has 2 dots instead of 4, and the balance between dots and normal spells have become completely one sided. And while summoning Bahamut is thematically better, they still could have kept Summoner more inline to what people enjoyed. Having Demi Bahamut function similarly to Dreadwyrm trance, and keeping the rest of the class relatively the same would have had people much happier then the iteration we have now.

[zuzu-bq]

The same cannot be said for Summoner, because the very progression of the job was changed to accomodate the changes, so instead of living in 3 dots during a certain range of levels, you always have two now. You used MCH in the middle of the argument while the job was launched with cast bars but just following the "no cast til 52" concept of Bard and then followed saying SMN problem is the same even though it got essentially changed down to earlier levels? I think we should stop here friend and go back to good things pointed out on the OP. The discussion between you and me won't do anything but make this thread longer.

[Ariomi]

The same cannot be said for Summoner, because the very progression of the job was changed to accomodate the changes, so instead of living in 3 dots during a certain range of levels, you always have two now.

Your argument makes no sense at all. All classes unlock new combos abilities at certain levels. Taking away Summoner's dots is like removing a melee combo from drg/ninja/etc.
You don't see how that's a fundamental change? A class that had Four Gcd dots,(Shadowflare, Bio 2, Miasma, Bio 1 and some people even used Miasma 2 in the opener) fundamentally changed to two, is fundamentally as big of a change bard/mch getting cast bars with Wanderer's minuet/gauss cannon. (Atleast you could turn off wanderer's minuet/gauss canon. I can't get any of my dots back.)

Smn is not remotely the same. If You applied every dot summoner had, it would take 11 seconds, then you refresh each dot 6 seconds before the next. (Reapply after 18 seconds, reapply after 24, reapply after 30.)

Smn now spends almost no time applying it's dots. 3 seconds at the most. This has immensely changed the class. (Reapply all dots instantly after 30 seconds)

So your argument makes no factual sense and is completely wrong.

[zuzu-bq]

I actually said it was a fundamental change done in a different way so you cannot compare them the same. But you insist in doing so. I also said since we cannot agree ever we should simply agree to disagree with eachother. Oh yeah there is a thread saying they love SMN by the way, since you love "thread proof".

[Karshan]

Yeah with aa lot of non mains, some stating things completely wrong on 4.1 changes. I mean sure SMN has good things, and I agree with the title : SMN is fun when you just play it in easy content with no expectations for your results.
But in trying to reach the top, SB SMN is way less intuitive than HS SMN and that's a slap to all old SMN players. Doesn't matter to newer ones or people who don't care barely reaching 4000, because "whoaaaa bahamut !", might matters to others though.
Frustrating to have a class with such power being so ludicrously unflowy and counter intuitive to reach a decent DPS. You have to train hard, shouldn't be the case when you've been playing the class for long. Should go smooth and easy, and only need learning if you begin the class.

[Ariomi]

I actually said it was a fundamental change done in a different way so you cannot compare them the same. But you insist in doing so. I also said since we cannot agree ever we should simply agree to disagree with eachother. Oh yeah there is a thread saying they love SMN by the way, since you love "thread proof".

It doesn't matter if bard's change was in a different way. If they both bard and summoner have a single thing in common like... a fundamental change, that alters the way the class behaves, then you can absolutely compare. In neither case, were people completely satisfied.

[zuzu-bq]

SMN right now is very fun. It really feels like they just expanded the concept introduced in HW. Easing the dot applicationg so you can focus more on oGCD management. The real frustrating part is Bahamut's moves. Bahamut's damaging system is actually bad and one of the most non intuitive things in SMN so far. Besides that SMN feels pretty good besides being the only caster that can output comparable damage to double ranged comp. I been doing Ultimate with it and the only mini issue I've encountered is when Twin phases into Nael you have Bahamut and Rouse ready. But that's the same situation that happens on Exdeath post decisive battle no it's not a big deal anymore since people have managed to find ways to deal with it.

One big annoying thing is: takes forever to just test stuff with Bahamut on dummies. But that isn't a SMN only issue. Few other jobs have this with their own stuff too.

[KumiKuzumi]

Man this thread is funny. You guys are crazy lol. Miss Arr smn? It was literally just dot and ruin. Even hw smn, you blow your load in dwt and sit around playing mp mini game for over 30 seconds cause of contagioned dots. Not to mention dungeons with hw smn sucked with most tanks, with the 30 second trail timer.

Now you have so many strategic choices for dps gain. Dwt timings to make use of instant ruin 3s and movement. Planning bahamut to when you can maximize it's dps, including a useful addle for both mitigation and dps. Clipping in situations for dps gain, as zuzu said. This change for smn has been great.

I must not be normal or we have a different definition of "flow" because to me, the job flows super well understanding the core mechanics. Not comparing it to what it used to be. You can't aether in trance or trance in bahamut. There's a flow. You have your aether burst and your bahamut burst. Things make sense.

IMO SE should redesign the SMN and make it more like oldschool Summoners from FFI to FFIX.
Casting a Summon-> Summon appears and does a specific attack->Summon desapperas.
They could bring in the six Elements Wheel as Job Gauge, gaining elemental Aether from Summons, giving access to other Summonings (finally Shiva, Ramuh and Levi <3) and then spend all the Aether collected into one big Summon (Bahamut, Phoenix, Alexander).

Also best idea I've seen in this thread. We should be SUMMONERS.