Summoner likes and dislikes, an attempt to compilate thoughts on Summoner.

[Taranok]

With a lot of the discussions going forth on the summoner, I felt that a lot of people had different ideas on what summoner should be, and thought that there should be a thread discussing every individual person's Summoner and what they like or dislike about it.

So for this thread, I'd like everyone to state their thoughts, as neatly categorized as to what they like or dislike, as simple or robust as they'd like to detail it but so that each individual point is clear and easy to understand. Please include your summoner level and the hardest content you have cleared as well.

For example:

Level 80 Summoner
Cleared both Titania and Innocence Extreme repeatedly.

Likes:

• Demi-Phoenix and Demi-Bahamut feel really good, even if they are a bit simple right now, and summoning them more often feels better than once every other minute.
• Bane no longer being tied to Aetherflow
• Egi-Actions, when they don't throw errors, feels really good compared to SB's iteration.
• The increased potency of Ruin spells feels a lot better than it did in Stormblood.
• The removal of Shadowflare is nice.
• Tri-Disaster being on a 50s cooldowns means it will always be up in advance of when I want to actually use it.
• Ruination on a 30s duration and spreadable by Bane feels good.
• Outburst feels good, when I can actually cast it, despite the low potency.
• Trances having different rotations suits Summoner well.
• Being able to directly control when and how many ruin 4s you get is nice, as well as them stacking up to 4 times.
• No longer having to micromanage GCDs and oGCDs for Demi-Summons to maximize damage is a welcome change.
• Enkindle no longer having a random cooldown is amazing.
• +%damage increases are gone outside of Devotion.

Dislikes:

• The class has too many separate things to watch, making the class incredibly clunky to play, devoid of a real flow and dampening the experience of the class.
• Egis feel like a tacked-on legacy mechanic that I personally wouldn't miss if it was flat out deleted at this point.
• Egi damage is anemic, with Egi Assaults 1 and 2 both feeling really bad overall to actually use
• Energy Drain and Energy Siphon do not feel like good mechanics, and the 30 second timer feels especially awful because of the first point of dislikes.
• Fester and Painflare are in the same boat, and when combined with Energy Drain/Siphon, it's a massive amount of bar bloat for specialist actions.
• Demi-Bahamut not being summoned during Dreadwyrm Trance does not feel especially good, and the demi-primals in general feel better when summoned during the trance itself where every cast is instant.
• Unless you time your tri-disasters and hard cast of Miasma/Bio 3 perfectly, it's very easy to drop Ruination or your DoTs, losing very significant amounts of damage during sections of the rotation, especially right as you're about to transition into Firebrand Trance.
• Firebrand Trance and its associated abilities gain no benefit from Ruination, at all, despite the optimal rotation putting 20 seconds of ruination during it.
• Ruination, at a 75% uptime now, doesn't feel especially good considering just how much damage it actually gives to the rotation, especially when 20 seconds of that 90 seconds of uptime happens at a time when Ruination affords no benefit.
• Demi-Bahamut and Demi-Phoenix are capable of dropping damaging attacks of Wyrmwave and Scarlet Flame during periods of high movement by the Summoner.
• The class has a lot of cooldown drift, especially with Energy Drain/Siphon and the trances.
• Why is Brand of Purgatory an Outburst replacement instead of ruin 2/4? It feels weird for a single target rotation to replace an AoE spell even if the replacement itself is aoe.
• Bane feels like a superfluous ability that bloats an already bloated AoE rotation, with Bane not really having a reason to exist as an action instead of a trait now.
• The AoE rotation is high-octane nightmare fuel and flat out feels like garbage, outright, period.
• Devotion naturally wants to naturally be used before or during Dreadwyrm Trance. However, because of the 3 minute rotation, if it's ever used during Dreadwyrm Trance or is delayed to the point where it would be used during it, then it will next come off cooldown during Firebrand trance, when it flat out cannot be used.

So what do you like about the class and what do you hate about it? Let's see what common ground/concensus we can find on Summoner is, what people like and dislike, and what players dislike the most to let the devs know how we want the class changed to get it through Shadowbringers.

[Nyoraii]

I know my opinion doesn't amount to much as I'm only a lvl 70 SMN, but I got to say that leveling a SMN felt really bad and even though SMN is my favourite class of any FF, I'm hating FFXIV SMN, it doesn't feel like a SMN at all.

As someone posted on another thread, this would be my idea for a SMN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwiSy_rasDw

As of right now, SMN in FFXIV feels like a cheap knock of Warlock from WoW. I never even understood why SMN had Bio, since Bio was always a BLM magic.
Summoning in every FF I played was always about burst damage and using summons to attack, not attacking with dots and having IFRIT dealing 1% of your overall damage.

[Alym]

Level 80 Summoner
Cleared both Titania and Innocence 99 times (for mount collection) resulting in orange and purple parses for both.

Likes:
- Bane not being connected to Aetherflow. Not needing to hold onto an Aetherflow charge in dungeons for the next trash pack feels so freeing, especially when the trash is dying really slowly and you have that extra charge just sitting there taunting you. Believe it or not, this was one of my biggest annoyances on SMN and was ultimately the change that pushed me to main SMN for ShB.
- The visual impact and large numbers from Demi-Bahamut and Phoenix really propels that class fantasy to the next level. I've always loved summoners in Final Fantasy and mained one in FFXI for years. The egis always feel lame in comparison to real summons and have never made me feel like a summoner. It didn't help that the main way for SMN to do damage was poison spells, either.
- Changing egis now no longer requires MP or a cast time. This is not only functionally helpful (or should be, if/when Ifrit gets his auto attacks back) but it also adds to the class fantasy of summoning magical beings that you need/want for that moment.
- Having an AoE spell in Outburst is great, but this spell will also have a mention in the dislikes section.
- No longer needing to use precious GCDs to heal egis.
- Egi responsiveness is better (but still needs a lot of work, to be honest).

Dislikes:
- The rotation is all over the place and filled with bloat. It's like the class was designed by 3-4 different people who all had different ideas of what this job should be and none of them could agree so they compromised by smashing all of their ideas together. Nothing seems to line up elegantly, double weaving is now the standard just to fit all the bloat in, and none of it fits together thematically. Are we poison mages who do more damage as long as our DoTs are up? Are we summoning small pets to proc stronger spells to weave our ogcd bloat? Are we channelers who enter trances for access to shorter cast times and primal abilities? Are we summoners who call on Demi-Primals with short rest inbetween them? The answer is yes to all of the above. It's an unfocused mess:

• Demi-Primals and trances can go together but have absolutely no synergy with DoTs, Egis, and Aetherflow, and for some reason one trance summons the corresponding Demi-Primal and the other doesn't because...? One Trance gives us access to two alternating instant cast spells while the other is forced to end if we use the one special spell it grants us. Why the inconsistency?
• Egis are kind of just a special DoT, but they have no synergy with anything but Ruin IV to fit in our ogcd bloat.
• DoTs and Aetherflow fit together nicely but are off in their own universe from the rest of the class, too. Phoenix's spells don't even get increased damage from Ruination.

- Egi Assaults are weak and annoying to have to weave. We didn't need to weave pet abilities before but now we do and there is no real payoff for it apart from Ruin IV procs we used to get without needing to micromanage and double weave. On top of that, I lose Ruin IV procs so much when double weaving with that dumb error message.
- Demi-Primals are slow, sluggish, and drop their WW or SF way too much. Either make them stay mostly still or let them cast on the move. I can't count how many times I've used Enkindle Bahamut during movement mechanics to only have to wait 3-4 seconds for him to actually use Akh Morn. It's pretty unacceptable. In times of high movement, I've even lost the second Enkindle to Demi-Primal sluggishness.
- Outburst, our spammable AoE spell, is too hard to use during AoE which is also completely unacceptable. If you want to use Garuda's Egi Assaults, Painflare, Tri-Disaster, Bane, Enkindle, Devotion, etc outside of a Dreadwyrm Trance, you basically have to clip. Outburst should always have no cast time. Clipping or using Ruin II/IV feels terrible in AoE situations.
- The amount of pointless ogcds is staggering. Egi Assaults exacerbated this issue since we now cannot command Egis to do anything without interrupting our gcds or ogcds. It makes the class way too busy. Bane can be a trait, Egi Assaults could be automatic, Fester and Painflare can be deleted and their damage folded into our DoTs and/or Ruins, and to top it off, our trance with a Demi-Primal can make you sit on Egi Assault charges if ill-timed because, again, they are two different systems with no synergy. Then there is now the fact that you must now use Lucid Dreaming on CD to remain mp positive because SMN is now one of only two dps classes with a depleting resource (with TP having been removed).
- Raise needs to just be deleted from casters altogether. With TP removal, there are only two dps classes in the entire game that have resources deplete: SMN and RDM. So not only do we have a dps tax because of Raise, but we now are one of the rare dps classes who can come to a standstill without spamming Lucid Dreaming because of it. Plus, we would stop being the only role to have farm and progression classes. How many casters level RDM and SMN for progession and then BLM for farm? Does your melee do that? Your tanks? Your healers?

There's so much more I dislike and I may update it later, but overall I think they need to start trimming the fat away from Summoner. Choose a focus and design everything around that focus. Personally, I think they need to remove one of the following: 1) DoTs and Aetherflow 2) Egis and Egi Assaults 3) Trances and Demi-Primals.

Something has to give. I would prefer for DoTs and Aetherflow to get the axe.

[Taranok]

I know my opinion doesn't amount to much as I'm only a lvl 70 SMN, but I got to say that leveling a SMN felt really bad and even though SMN is my favourite class of any FF, I'm hating FFXIV SMN, it doesn't feel like a SMN at all.

As someone posted on another thread, this would be my idea for a SMN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwiSy_rasDw

As of right now, SMN in FFXIV feels like a cheap knock of Warlock from WoW. I never even understood why SMN had Bio, since Bio was always a BLM magic.
Summoning in every FF I played was always about burst damage and using summons to attack, not attacking with dots and having IFRIT dealing 1% of your overall damage.

You can reply just fine even at level 70. The rotation actually doesn't change that much between 70 and 80. You get Demi-Bahamut faster, and Firebrand Trance is overcomplicated between 72 and 80 where Egi Assault is removed from the rotation, but otherwise the class at 70 plays almost identically to how it plays at 80, barring those specific things.

[Dyvid]

I know my opinion doesn't amount to much as I'm only a lvl 70 SMN, but I got to say that leveling a SMN felt really bad and even though SMN is my favourite class of any FF, I'm hating FFXIV SMN, it doesn't feel like a SMN at all.

As someone posted on another thread, this would be my idea for a SMN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwiSy_rasDw

As of right now, SMN in FFXIV feels like a cheap knock of Warlock from WoW. I never even understood why SMN had Bio, since Bio was always a BLM magic.
Summoning in every FF I played was always about burst damage and using summons to attack, not attacking with dots and having IFRIT dealing 1% of your overall damage.

Well in ARR or 2.0, they wanted each job to play differently from each other, in this case BLM and SMN. BLM was the big burst spell caster so they wanted SMN to be different. They decided to make it FFXIV pet job and on using DoT's as a main source of damage with ruin as a filler. You are correct that it does/did play like vanilla WoW warlock but that's not a bad thing.

Anyway, not to derail the thread. It's late no so I'll post tomorrow.

[Kiteless]

I dabbled with SMN in ARR, had it as my primary DPS in HW, and then when I came back very late into Stormblood, played SMN while getting ready for ShB. However, after some light testing on training dummies after Shadowbringers' release, I can't really bring myself to touch the job anymore, as much as I'd like to make SMN my main DPS again.

I like not having to queue up Aetherflows between fights, and I do appreciate that it feels like there's less overall downtime and more to do during those downtimes. But the overall flow of things feels so broken. The Egi Assault skills are the absolute worst offenders, and need to go, and I can't see myself picking up the class again until those awful skills are removed or altered entirely. It's not just that they do piss-poor damage that serves only to act as busy work to facilitate the use of other buttons. They completely destroy any sense of rhythm that the job is supposed to be at its most engaging in.

For what it's worth, I do like knowing that I'm the dude who's pressing the most buttons in the room. I don't mind complexity. The important thing here is that it needs to flow. The thing I enjoyed about SMN was that once you got into the rhythm of things, it was easy to kind of stick with the groove without having to focus so intensely on a strict rotation. SMN needs to get its groove back.

I wouldn't mind seeing SMN retooled to focus around having different trances for each primal, and rotating between them based on availability and the situation. It's pretty clear at this point that the devs don't really know what to do with it as a pet class.

[Darkreality6]

I'm level 80 summoner, and I feel like its identity is lacking. How can one call themselves a summoner, when their summons barely do any damage. I believe that FFXIV should take notes from the FFXI universe for summoner, and make it into their own. The purpose of a summoner is to have summons fight for you. I could honestly care less about the DOTS. When I played WoW, I never tried affliction, because i'm not a fan of DOTs, and a summoners main damage should be from their summons, not their dots. I like that they have the egi assaults, but it's useless to be honest, because the damage for egis is so low, it's pathetic. Summoner is my favorite class in the FF universe, but the summoner in FFXIV doesn't feel like a summoner at all. its summons are useless. Yes, the Demi-Phoenix and Demi-Bahamut concept is cool, but you only get two attacks from them. Summoner needs more.

[Trensharo]

Agree. Resubbed and won't be buying the expac until a patch is issued to address issues, if that ever happens. Not renewing my sub after this month.

Feels absolutely awful to play. Not a fan.

I have pretty narrow class preferences, so the viability of this game to me pretty much hinges on whether or not SMN is fun to play or not.

And it's not fun for me to play.

It feels like work... and honestly if a class isn't the least bit intuitive, then the designer have failed. Feels like they only got half the job done, but needed to stay on schedule, so they just pushed it out like this to show that they at least did something.

Will wait for 5.2 or so and check if things improve by then.

[Darkreality6]

I agree with everything, except your comment about raise for dps. I've saved so many parties from wiping with my raise abilities, especially if i'm on red mage.

[Trensharo]

I know my opinion doesn't amount to much as I'm only a lvl 70 SMN, but I got to say that leveling a SMN felt really bad and even though SMN is my favourite class of any FF, I'm hating FFXIV SMN, it doesn't feel like a SMN at all.

As someone posted on another thread, this would be my idea for a SMN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwiSy_rasDw

As of right now, SMN in FFXIV feels like a cheap knock of Warlock from WoW. I never even understood why SMN had Bio, since Bio was always a BLM magic.
Summoning in every FF I played was always about burst damage and using summons to attack, not attacking with dots and having IFRIT dealing 1% of your overall damage.

The issue most people have with Summoner isn't that the Egis do low damage or that they think Bio should be a BLM spell... It's with the way the class plays. The Skill and oGCD bloat. The throttled, uneven rotation. The amount of work you have to do to barely out-DPS a RDM; which has better mobility, better utility, less ramp-up, and a far less punishing rotation to execute. The only reason to play this class is because you just have to pay a pet class... and the pets are so insignificant that I barely consider it that, anymore. Bahamut and Phoenix are basically like temp pets in EQ2, except worse since they de-spawn your permanent pet...

Cause you know … not despawning them would totally overpower SMN DPS output, yea...