Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[Neela]

I like the idea behind the rework but I find the execution far from elegant.

DWT should really work like FBT at this point by passively integrating Summon Bahamuth in it since it feels clunky and unnecessary, especially after losing its damage buff.
Just like what happens with FBT, DWT should also temporary upgrade Ruin III into Wyrmwaves and Outburst into Death Flare, Enkindle Bahamuth could go for Mega Flare which is also Bahamuth's classic signature attack and would at least look different.

^ this aaaaalll the f***ing way - it could be so easy to make it logical and fun to play... but no devs play the „Bahamut is still special“ card with his own useless summon button while cutting his real specialty by getting mad with ogcds... totally garbage...

Yoshi should leave Blm for a while and get his own hands on smn... maybe devs would think first than instead throwing out such a chaos without any sense...

[Angry_Evil]

I think it boils down to the fact that the two design notions are impossible to fully align, therefore we get a bit of both in the current design. I think no matter what the devs do, they cannot please everyone, and it wouldn't be fair to fundamentally change the job, based on the wishes of those who don't play it. So taking the spirit of both ideas, for me, is the right approach.

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...

[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.

[Dyvid]

Everything we have in SB and ShB was because of player feedback.

We received Demi-Bahamut because players, myself include, were upset we got Bahamut Breath in 3.0 but not Bahamut as a temp pet
We got Egi Assault because we didn't like pets responsiveness or lack there of. We got an AoE pet and Single Target pet because we wanted a true reason to use one over the other.
We got Energy Drain > Aetherflow because people didn't like the lockout in DWT that 4.0 brought.

I don't recall a lot of complaints about DoTs but I don't mind the change in 5.0. It rewards player with DPS boost for maintaining their DoT's. The current job does need tweaks and balances but it's is nowhere as broken as say MCH in 4.0.

[Angry_Evil]

Everything we have in SB and ShB was because of player feedback.

We received Demi-Bahamut because players, myself include, were upset we got Bahamut Breath in 3.0 but not Bahamut as a temp pet
We got Egi Assault because we didn't like pets responsiveness or lack there of. We got an AoE pet and Single Target pet because we wanted a true reason to use one over the other.
We got Energy Drain > Aetherflow because people didn't like the lockout in DWT that 4.0 brought.

That's a lot of assumptions.
Only thing we actually know we got cause of community was fix from 4.0 to 4.1
If current summoner is how square answers to feedback it's better for them to not do it ever at all.

I don't recall a lot of complaints about DoTs but I don't mind the change in 5.0. It rewards player with DPS boost for maintaining their DoT's. The current job does need tweaks and balances but it's is nowhere as broken as say MCH in 4.0.

It does not reward for maintaining DoTs cause DoTs are always up, it punishes for not having DoTs in situations where we have several adds like on current ex trials and in a bunch of other situations. Literally no reason for change like that. Not having dots which are like 14% of SMN damage + bad festers will punish them enough.
I myself said that I don't think current smn is as bad as 4.0 one but some things are just baffling. And they're just piling up more you think about it

[IlSire]

I like the idea behind the rework but I find the execution far from elegant.

DWT should really work like FBT at this point by passively integrating Summon Bahamuth in it since it feels clunky and unnecessary, especially after losing its damage buff.
Just like what happens with FBT, DWT should also temporary upgrade Ruin III into Wyrmwaves and Outburst into Death Flare, Enkindle Bahamuth could go for Mega Flare which is also Bahamuth's classic signature attack and would at least look different.

Egis are another point which overall seem like a half-executed idea.

Garuda is the only one which does what it is supposed to do: aoe specialist, has its niche, good.

Ifrit doesn't really need a weak aoe as Egi Assault II with the same potency of its single target ability, make it a full fledged single target specialist and give it a single target DoT instead.
If we need AoE we should just summon Garuda anyway, it's istant and free.

Titan has (finally) a good concept as a walking defensive cooldown but it still feels too punishing, and pointless, to use most of the time.
Allow Egi Assault to proc Ruin IV and remove the weak, useless, aoe from Egi Assault II and turn it into something for what Titan is supposed to do: support.
How about a Gaol on self that gives a brief invulnerability? A weak aoe Stoneskin effect for the whole party? Or maybe something for DPS, like a crit buff?

Quoting myself to add that the entire flow of the class is not good and feels extremely bloated while sinergy between various abilities like Aetherflow Stacks, Egis etc is non existant.
By streamlining the execution of a few mechanics like merging DWT and Summon Bahamuth (and fixing Egis) we could get a way more elegant rotation.

Aetherflow stacks and Egi Assault menagement should be what has to be used in between big summons which should then become the focused mechanic during their timer, maybe even lockout Fester and co. during those to avoid downtime situations if badly menaged.

It should go something like this:

Dots/Aetherflow Abilities/Egi Assault/Ruin/Outburst Spam>
DWT (Summon Bahamuth included)/Wyrmwave/DeathFlare/AkhMorn(Please make it Mega Flare at least it looks different from the previous ability)>
Dots/Aetherflow Abilities/Egi Assault/Ruin/Outburst Spam>
FBT (Summon Phoenix included)/Fountain of Fire/Brand of Purgatory/Revelation>
Dots/Aetherflow Abilities/Egi Assault/Ruin/Outburst Spam>
And so on.

This way the job would have a decent, elegant, flow and avoid the bloated situation we have now.

[Miziliti]

5.0 SMN is a frustrating mess. Jesus so many oGCDs. The clunkiness is that of a 4.0 MCH (yes I said it). Mid SB SMN is finally at it's peak smoothness. Give back my Ruin IV proc. Manual pet egi assaults are so bad that my chance of seeing ruin IV is 3-5% per fight. Seriously, I don't get it. Why does SMN need such big overhaul when (finally in mid SB) nothing is wrong to begin with? All the fun from doting and manage trance are all ruined by press this oGCD click that egi assualt. Everything is too manual now!!!!!!

SMN has always been fairly busy class, but what the hell is this mess right now. I hate egi assaults with a burning passion. Might as well just delete egi pet because I'm too busy to take care it. After running several dungeons over and over again, I really cannot stand SMN in its current state.

[HeulGDarian]

Why do people think that the stormblood summoner doesn't feel like summoner? O.o

everything we do makes perfect sense lore wise . Demi bahamut was foreshadowed when we learned about the trance, ok aetherflow is something that has stayed from arcanist but so are the dots. Honestly to me it was more buffling to see pheonix and trance being the same that was something that didn't make any sense .If we take it as trancing being the journey from 72 to 80 and then enabling the demi summon then it makes sense but then they should make demi bahamut the same.

The old system made perfect sense, you were a mage who had some small summons that helped you fight while you were trying to gather power for bigger summons. now they butchered the arcanist system which was building up on the summoner trance system killing the foundation of the whole thing and for what? a bunch of people who don't play the job cause it doesn't feel like summoner whining? no they did it cause they are trying to remove arcanist who connects SCH with SMN . that's what people were asking for some reason. once they removed the attributes system the only problem that existed was the balancing one . during stormblood there were still people that kept asking the jobs to be separated and I'm sure those are the same that you'll see asking that they should remove fester and make it demi leviathan on Reddit or gamefaqs.


I expected the summons becoming instant . I thought that what would happen was making the trance change according to the summon . if they just balanced titan so that he was as useful as garuda and ifrit they could have just made trance give different aether attunements so that it summons different Demi summons . that was where the system looked like it was going . but now we got a smn who doesn't even have the choice of picking its summon just so that it feels like its always summoning.



that's me griefing at stuff so you can ignore it =.=

[Osmond]

Well since I got my SMN to 80 and did some EX trials, I can say this. Energy drain/siphon requires a target doesn't feels frustrating. In a way once you get used to it, it's much better now that it has a 30sec CD. Trance timings...it does felt weird in these new changes. Yet, stormblood's SMN, from using your DWT to summon bahamut, there was a wait time in process in order to keep your DPS high. Made it into a strict rotation because if you mess that up, you lose DPS overall. In time it becomes annoying so I can see why they abolished that design. Forced drop DoTs....what? I don't understand that. Playing since ARR, why now that's a requirement for SMNs? APM issue....well I already thought that it was a job that make you busy overall so it wasn't much of a problem for me. The ghost action, yeah I see that as a problem, but i'm sure it would take time for the team to adjust that. Bahamut doesn't feel awkward once you understand that it doesn't attack if you use an ability hotbar...that's all it is. Have to remove that in your brain that it can't wyrmwave using abilities. Energy siphon...free dmg, don't mind it. Everlasting flight is amazing as a utility, helps healers in the longterm..although you have to group up around your party to get the effect.. Slipstream...if the tank moves via AoEs, nothing you can do about it as long you get a ruin 4 stack, that's what matters. Difficulty curve...I don't think so. If you play SMN in stormblood, just take off a few things, add in a few things and nothing really changed..adjust your brain.

Overall, I like the change for 5.X SMN. Doesn't feel restricted to know when to use your bahamut. No lockdown on your aetherflow stacks during DWT. Can DoT/Bane much easier now. CC does more dmg than 4.X version SMN. Hmm, 1 thing I can say to buff SMN is the garuda egi potencies on their assaults.