Summoner’s job identity

[Marianno]

This is what turned me off of SMN during its early iteration. The damn pets never listen too me. They never follow orders and it's frustrating too try and execute/time their skills with my own and the burst windows of other group members. My hats off too those who can masterfully play SMN. I just want the damn pets too do what I say. Seems like that is asking for a miracle too happen (IMO).

[Mansion]

This is what turned me off of SMN during its early iteration. The damn pets never listen too me. They never follow orders and it's frustrating too try and execute/time their skills with my own and the burst windows of other group members. My hats off too those who can masterfully play SMN. I just want the damn pets too do what I say. Seems like that is asking for a miracle too happen (IMO).

It's so counter intuitive that a pet will execute an ability faster if it's on sic than if it's on obey and you ask him to do it. From what I understand, optimal pet management is using the abilities you don't want on cooldown while on obey, then switch to sic so that Garuda will cast contagion by itself faster than if you asked it to do so, then get it back to obey...



I actually want pets to be kind of like Bahamut, minus the fact that it wants to stay close to you. Being there, without being there. Have them autoattack based on your actions, and you'd just control the ONE skill (Contagion, mostly) that is useful.

[Saefinn]

I like the idea, even if I don't know a thing about balancing or design and can't tell if it'd work in a realistic setting.

Too bad SE won't ever change SMN because, let's face it, that's a shit ton of work to put into a single job that still outperforms most others by a mile. Not to mention all the people who'd be pissed that their main class was changed so drastically that they'd have to learn an entirely new rotation, breaking muscle memory that has been built for almost three full expansions by this point.

This would be my concern. I think SE have backed themself into a corner with this design. The Summoner we have got is an FFXIV equivalent of Warlock in WoW, which is not a bad thing, because I love my Summoner. But I've never considered it a Summoner, just DoT Mage + Pet that later got useful burts. I don't think the job needs a rework, even reworking the animations to include the pets would be kinda clunky to get the feel as many of them are quick to go off. Though taking a leaf out of Deathflare's book may be cool, so you have the power of Primals, so some spells match primal animations better. So existing SMN spells are replaced with Primal themed ones in name, animation and description.

I think if they make Limited Jobs more worthwhile, then I see potential for an alternative solution to the identity problem. Created a Limited Job version that required you to refight (maybe solo versions) of each primal to form some kind of aetherpact, meaning it's own aether you're using to summon apparitions of them, rather than a 'proper' summoning, otherwise it'd not be very fitting of the Warrior of Light. This way they could attempt a job fantasy version of the job to suit and Limited Job mechanics. This avoids screwing with the existing summoner to displease its current following and means at each update they don't need to worry about its conflicting identity between what they created and what people expected originally.

[Orbus]

I will never play the summoner class.
Summons should be their main force, not a pet micromanagement minigame which I loathe in every mmo and is a supplementary source of their damage instead of the primary.
And while I like the idea of a class that deals the majority of its damage through dots, the summoner is about the last final fantasy job I think of when it comes to that.
Really the summoner spells are more in line with blm spells (bio spells almost always fall under black magic) and the bio spells would make more sense as blm dots than thunder spells... but I'm basically nitpicking details at this point.

I understand that you can't have a class actually summon down the titan primal and deal a billion damage, but the egi's are just underwhelming, and with each expac the design flaws with them show more and more and the increasing problem if the summoner... not getting any more summons on a class named summoner.

[Neela]

still voting for demi primals only or even better but most unlikely... summons like the manticore/succubus pots in potd/hoh... for me it would be pretty awesome if you could take control over the summon itself - like Yuna does her summons in her games

[loreleidiangelo]

I will never play the summoner class.
Summons should be their main force, not a pet micromanagement minigame which I loathe in every mmo and is a supplementary source of their damage instead of the primary.
And while I like the idea of a class that deals the majority of its damage through dots, the summoner is about the last final fantasy job I think of when it comes to that.
Really the summoner spells are more in line with blm spells (bio spells almost always fall under black magic) and the bio spells would make more sense as blm dots than thunder spells... but I'm basically nitpicking details at this point.

I understand that you can't have a class actually summon down the titan primal and deal a billion damage, but the egi's are just underwhelming, and with each expac the design flaws with them show more and more and the increasing problem if the summoner... not getting any more summons on a class named summoner.

Tbh, it's absurd to me that people say, "SMN can't have big nukes because that's black mage's niche"...then completely ignore that the development team is basically turning the job into a "Bahamut mage" (BHM?) anyway. Like, why wasn't/isn't EVERY summon built around a design like Bahamut? It's reasonably sized so you feel epic (and with transparency options doesn't hinder others' gameplay), does a few random okay moves then a bigass cool move before departing - sure it has command input issues and really should be a static priority system AI instead of whatever it is now, or maybe even let you command him by replacing some of the buttons on your hotbar (maybe your DoTs?) with summon-specific moves while he's out, but that could be fixed. Why don't we get a Garuda Prime or whatever that appears in the same way? Titan Prime, so SMN's can actually USE Titan sometimes because even in the open world Ifrit or Garuda is just better anyway?

Beastmaster is a better candidate for a permanent-pet type style of gameplay anyway, tbh. Or Puppeteer, if that ever comes. My dream for 5.0 would be to see SMN gameplay completely re-tooled into more of a combo mage style gameplay where chaining together elemental skills lets you summon a primal for a big epic nuke before it disappears (aka get rid of the ACN holdover bits and leave that for SCH, and give SMN a brand-new base class or possibly even let THM be its base case since it would use elemental spells), but if that won't happen I do think at LEAST re-tooling the Egi system to where all three play seamlessly around the DoTs-n-Aetherflow system while still managing to feel like you're summoning big and epic entities like Bahamut would be a good start.

[Kalise]

Honestly, yeah, current SMN does not really feel like SMN.

It really just feels like a copy/paste of WoW Warlock. Which is a let down for such a notable class from the FF series. Summons are a really cool and flashy thing in previous games (If sometimes a little tedious... Looking at you Chain Knights of the Round in FFVII!)

Pet management should be reserved for SCH and Beastmaster. Where having permanent pets makes sense.

SMN really only starts to be fun when you get Demi-Bahamut because then you get this big badass summon come in and start blowing things up. In addition, you have all these Primals that we go and fight which by all accounts we should learn to summon, but nope. Stuck with only Ifrit/Garuda/Titan because they're not designed to be summons, they're designed to be pets that fulfil specific roles.

Ironically, a fully kitted BLU has a better feeling of being a Summoner because they literally use Primal skills periodically. While SMN gets this watered down "Primal" summon that you don't really give a damn about, you just want it to proc your good Ruin spell by slapping stuff...

SMN should revolve around periodically bringing out Demi Primals which work like the current Demi-Bahamut. They come out, they smash some stuff, then they sod off while you build up summoning the next one. With potentially some, such as Shiva, Thordan and Tsukuyomi being ones where you yourself fuse with the Primal and blast away a bit (Sort of like Dreadwyrm Trance only more impactful than just "Well, your bad Ruin spell is instant cast" and visually exciting)

Less Warlock or Mage and more you know... SUMMONER.

[Jukebox12]

you guys do realize that they cannot change anything right the lore has been made I wish they made more summons but I guess we get what we get if feels like a Warlock but it still a summoner you have a SUMMON

[Shiroe]

ill just poat my biggest issue on smn again (as a ps4 player)

=> take contagion off from the pet, and make it a smn spell, smn can cast themselves.., that would be a imo big help to its clunkyness..

but sure, only allow smn to cast contagion when Garuda pet is out.., just don't make it a pet action but a smn spell

[Kurando]

=> take contagion off from the pet, and make it a smn spell, smn can cast themselves.., that would be a imo big help to its clunkyness..

but sure, only allow smn to cast contagion when Garuda pet is out.., just don't make it a pet action but a smn spell

Then we are left with an action taking up unnecessary space on the hotbar, especially when a player is opting to use Ifrit (or Titan less so) instead. PC players can have the issue too though not just PS4, but it's just unresponsiveness which can easily be fixed by giving Garuda the SCH fairy treatment to have actions be used immediately regardless if Wind Blade is being cast.