Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[ShadowNyx3]

We didn’t have time to take a look at Red Mage or Summoner, please tell us more about them

Yoshida: It difficult to describe the new Summoner just using words. All pet summons will be instant, so you can swap between your pets depending on the situation. It feels a lot more like a “Summoner”. After you used “Summon Bahamut” it felt like the rotation got too boring, so now you can summon Phoenix. You will have one of them at each time by your side to fight along with you. We removed the annoying part of stacking your “Aetherflow” pre-pull as well. Pet will execute actions on command as well now, so the confusing parts of Summoner changed and it will feel a lot more like a *true* summoner

I hadn't read this but I knew this was likely the real goal behind it all. Wanting to feel more like a Summoner is a never-ending source of strife for this job and it honestly makes me wish they'd just remap current Summoner onto a new job like Beastmaster and reincarnate SMN as something else entirely so people can live out their Yuna and Rydia fantasies and stop complaining about the egis. Because it seriously feels like they want to remove the pets but just won't. I thought they were actually going to try and make them more unique with the instant cast change, but they made them worse! Could you imagine being able to instant swap old Ifrit and Garuda as needed, having Contagion and Radiant Shield whenever you needed them? But nope, they made them all extremely similar with even less nuance than it originally appeared with the unexpected low potency of Ifrit.


But yeah, the message is clear what they wanted to do, it's just laughable that they piled on so many issues by making unnecessary fundamental changes and faux "improvements" to existing mechanics, when it could have been made better with simple quality of life changes that so many other jobs got.

Aetherflow making people wait too long? Fill them up after a wipe. It's unbelievable that this couldn't have been done.

Not able to control Ruin IV usage reliably? Just add the stack feature to the old procs...now you can still use them to weave your oGCDs (goodbye four pet actions) but also have some for movement too so that minimizing Ruin II is optimization and not just an unavoidable punishment.

Rotation too boring after Bahamut phase? Well, they did come up with a good order, DWT -> Bahamut -> Phoenix, but why force the 60s Cooldown between trances? They made an even longer gap that completely ruined the fluidity of the Tri->Tri->Hardcast DoT application rotation and tried to fill it with oGCD weaving hell to make it more entertaining.

Doesn't feel like a Summoner? Make Bahamut feel like Phoenix and give the individual egis distinct, optimal features that incentivize summon swapping (example: Ifrit has the highest auto damage, Garuda has a magic buff, and Titan has the strongest Enkindle ability).


I never imagined that so many bad design decisions could be made, implemented and touted as the improvements they were intended to be. I am and forever will be utterly baffled until a developer explains their reasoning in detail.

[Rakith]

I hadn't read this but I knew this was likely the real goal behind it all. Wanting to feel more like a Summoner is a never-ending source of strife for this job and it honestly makes me wish they'd just remap current Summoner onto a new job like Beastmaster and reincarnate SMN as something else entirely so people can live out their Yuna and Rydia fantasies and stop complaining about the egis. Because it seriously feels like they want to remove the pets but just won't. I thought they were actually going to try and make them more unique with the instant cast change, but they made them worse! Could you imagine being able to instant swap old Ifrit and Garuda as needed, having Contagion and Radiant Shield whenever you needed them? But nope, they made them all extremely similar with even less nuance than it originally appeared with the unexpected low potency of Ifrit.


But yeah, the message is clear what they wanted to do, it's just laughable that they piled on so many issues by making unnecessary fundamental changes and faux "improvements" to existing mechanics, when it could have been made better with simple quality of life changes that so many other jobs got.

Aetherflow making people wait too long? Fill them up after a wipe. It's unbelievable that this couldn't have been done.

Not able to control Ruin IV usage reliably? Just add the stack feature to the old procs...now you can still use them to weave your oGCDs (goodbye four pet actions) but also have some for movement too so that minimizing Ruin II is optimization and not just an unavoidable punishment.

Rotation too boring after Bahamut phase? Well, they did come up with a good order, DWT -> Bahamut -> Phoenix, but why force the 60s Cooldown between trances? They made an even longer gap that completely ruined the fluidity of the Tri->Tri->Hardcast DoT application rotation and tried to fill it with oGCD weaving hell to make it more entertaining.

Doesn't feel like a Summoner? Make Bahamut feel like Phoenix and give the individual egis distinct, optimal features that incentivize summon swapping (example: Ifrit has the highest auto damage, Garuda has a magic buff, and Titan has the strongest Enkindle ability).


I never imagined that so many bad design decisions could be made, implemented and touted as the improvements they were intended to be. I am and forever will be utterly baffled until a developer explains their reasoning in detail.

I fully agree with you and all that's being written in this post. I like your idea of pet management/swapping for different effects depending on situation.
Hope SE sees this and do smth about our job quick.

[MagiusNecros]

Rotation too boring after Bahamut phase? Well, they did come up with a good order, DWT -> Bahamut -> Phoenix, but why force the 60s Cooldown between trances?

Yeah I find that part crap. So I end up delaying my Bahamut summon until Dreadwyrm/Firebird trance is off CD.

SO you have your initial Dreadwyrm burst but then you wait until you can do Bahamut and Phoenix back to back.

Some aspects they wanted to reduce that 2 minute buildup we had with Bahamut in 4.0 but it's still kinda there if you have to delay your double summon phase.