Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[Anvaire]

I don't believe in this. Nobody said something like - oooof I want my dots to make ruin 3 stronger so I have low damage without them THE DREAM or I want billion useless timers to manage. Lore or community opinions did not influences current poor design of a job. And I don't see many pleased people around and I'm one of few people that doesn't mind busyness of the job... For more causal players it's probably a disaster. Like... it's POORLY DESIGNED it's as simple as that. And not because of lore. Even if you're overall fine with changes you just need to sit and think about them for like a minute and it becomes apparent that it's just BAD. Devs already kinda ignoring the lore cause smn just summons bahamut and phoenix...

thats the point though, the only reason we have the Demi summons in the first place is to appease the crowd that were shouting "Summoner isn't a summoner unless its summons are big" I think the issue is that they are trying to tie two design fronts together - the reason we now have Egi Attack 1 and 2 is because the community moaned that Summoner didnt feel like a summoner because there was very little interaction with the pets and it was far better to just leave them on Sic. I think they moved the dots increasing Ruin to match the old style with fester - during SB there was a lot of complaints that the job penalised harshly, so they moved the fester = 0 damage when used with no dots to ruin and fester are buffed by dots instead.

As for the lore implications, if I recall, it isn't that we actually summon Bahamut, more just form his visage from the residual aether that remains after a DWT. Lore always comes after gameplay anyway - so I agree it doesn't really matter. But it is a convenient excuse they use now and then. I think the issue with Summoner now, is that individually its elements aren't overly bad. But when aligned together its a hodgepodge. That said, I don't think it requires any major changes to actually resolve. Small changes like increasing Energy drain cooldown to 60 secs but granting 4 charges instead of two, or allowing them and DWT to hold 2 charges would help. Rolling Demi Bahamut into DWT would also work, but I wonder whether we would end up with a lot of downtimes. The core issue for me isn't that the job is busy, though the new rotation has taken some getting used to, it's in how inflexible it is and that the damage output feels extremely low for its job difficulty. I do, however, like the flow from DWT to Bahamut to FBT - but I agree that a lot of things do not line up well and are difficult to keep in the flow due to their varying cooldown timers.

Actually thinking about it, maybe they tied the dots to ruin as another complaint in SB was that dots had little to no interaction with the other aspects of the job. At this point, I wonder if it wouldn't be beneficial to remove them entirely and role their damage into the egi or DWT. Not entirely convinced that would solve the job issues either though.

[Angry_Evil]

thats the point though, the only reason we have the Demi summons in the first place is to appease the crowd that were shouting "Summoner isn't a summoner unless its summons are big"

Again, I highly doubt that. SMN was going in this direction since HW. When they decided to not give us new egis and came up with all lore reasons for that. You are really overestimating how much community can influence what square does.

I think the issue is that they are trying to tie two design fronts together - the reason we now have Egi Attack 1 and 2 is because the community moaned that Summoner didnt feel like a summoner because there was very little interaction with the pets and it was far better to just leave them on Sic. I think they moved the dots increasing Ruin to match the old style with fester - during SB there was a lot of complaints that the job penalised harshly, so they moved the fester = 0 damage when used with no dots to ruin and fester are buffed by dots instead.

I don't like what you're saying about our great community. "Shouting"? "Moaned"? Or were they right in notion that square was unable to properly design the job? Thinking... I don;t understand your explanation about dots... it doesn't make any sense just like the decision to make dot buff ruins. Literally you can change that and NOTHING will change except QoL. People complained about fester not cause it was 0 damage on no dots but cause it didn't give you stacks delaying both dwt and bahamut and yeah it is a harsh penalty for no good reason. They changed that in 4.1 or whenever that balancing patch was.

Actually thinking about it, maybe they tied the dots to ruin as another complaint in SB was that dots had little to no interaction with the other aspects of the job. At this point, I wonder if it wouldn't be beneficial to remove them entirely and role their damage into the egi or DWT. Not entirely convinced that would solve the job issues either though.

I really don't think that EVERY decision by square is an answer to some complain lol It's not like they don't have agency. I actually remember people trying to blame the community for poor smn design in 4.0 too. It was just as wrong then as it is wrong now.

As for the other stuff - I always thought since SB that demi-summons is the right way for summoner, but their implementation is just ugh. Think about it - after years bahamut STILL WON'T CAST on command and will fly around like an idiot. It's actually even WORSE now cause he doesn't do as many WWs... So I'd argue that individual elements are also bad, or were MADE bad. Literally 1 thing that feels good about SMN right now is FBT. And yeah even IF your notion that they're trying to merry 2 concepts now demi summons and pets is true, there are still billion better ways of handling that. But ultimately I think this situation is WHOLLY of their own making.