How I would want SMN to work.

[Burningskull]

Since everyone seems to like Trances I did have an idea where you have a trance for everything from Carbuncle to Bahamut. I do like the idea of combining Bahamut with Dreadwyrm trance cause the fact that Pheonix Trance doesn't give Aether for a Bahamut summon after words means you spend however long till your next Dreadwyrm trance just spamming Ruin and DoTs. Throw in som oGCD primal abilities to throw in between your trance abilities and it wouldn't be that bad just going through trances.

[Taranok]

Can pretty much agree Tbh.
It could make a considerable difference from BLM if it was made of instant casts and more of a combo class like Melee DPS but using different primal abilities.
Although right now SMN is the same as BLM but badly done.
When I picked this class I expected SUMMONING and dealing damage through it, alas my Ruin hits for 3600s right now while Ifrit-Egi hits for 300.
It takes 12 attacks from Ifrit-Egi to match a 2.5 ruin cast.
And the DoTs? Pretty much the same as Ifrit-Egi.
https://www.fflogs.com/reports/RFmv7...-done&source=6
Even on almost perfect parses, Bio+Miasma+Egi damage doesn't even reach Ruin's damage.
This is bad bad.

Ifrit-egi should match Ruin 3's damage in 5 attacks. Ifrit comes in swinging for 40 effective potency, and ruin 3 is only 200 potency.

I really like the trances and the Demi summons. This sounds too much like a BLM with a different effect. I wouldn’t mind them changing our spells to be more based off primals. Primal based DOTs. A filler spell based off primals

I agree. The trance system accomplishes 2 specific things. One, it fits in the lore of FFXIV (kind of, mostly because the lore is written to justify gameplay, not the other way around), and two, trances can serve to justify altering SMN's rotation like how DB and DP are currently doing. The Trance should definitely be how you summon the primals, but it should also summon the primals, and each primal should be a simple, but unique rotation separate from the other trance phases.

And that would be something more closely approximating Summoner than what we have. That said, please no on DoTs as filler. Unless the primal itself throws it up as part of its unique rotation, DoTs as ffiller is one of the most boring of rotations you can have as a filler rotation. I'd seriously rather spam ruin 3 for a full minute than watch DoT timers in a fully complete rotation as filler.

Since everyone seems to like Trances I did have an idea where you have a trance for everything from Carbuncle to Bahamut. I do like the idea of combining Bahamut with Dreadwyrm trance cause the fact that Pheonix Trance doesn't give Aether for a Bahamut summon after words means you spend however long till your next Dreadwyrm trance just spamming Ruin and DoTs. Throw in som oGCD primal abilities to throw in between your trance abilities and it wouldn't be that bad just going through trances.

Funnily enough, this was my idea for how to get rid of egis but keep the carbuncles. And I further went and made it so Enkindle would summon any summon that you used to trance into as a random summon. That is to say, in a hypothetical 2-summon system where you get Emerald, Topaz, Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda, at level 50, Enkindle would randomly summon Emerald, Topaz, or Ifrit whereas the trances would summon Titan and Garuda. Just, you know, proper demi-summons for Ifrit/Titan/Garuda, just Phoenix-sized not Bahamut-sized.

[Tulzscha]

This is way to much going on, the class is a mess and no fun already.

If they combined Bahamut with DWT all they would need to do is shorten DWT to something like 45secs, you would essentially be summoning back to back but that’s what this class is supposed to be doing anyways. We don’t need the dots, egis and honestly arguably the stuff that comes with aether flow it’s all fluff and can be an annoyance to cut cast to do. DWT can have two different filler spells just like FBT. Summoning and Invoking primals is what we should be doing also if they wanna keep the current timer just add a third trance.

But more so realistically since SE lacks the resources to make impactful changes outside of xpacts.
- Extending dots to 33 or 35 would help tremendously with dot clunky behavior.
- if they insist on making us so stationary then we need something like what RDM has or BLM teleports.
- Ifrit needs to actually perform, not his gimped performance now.
- Egi assaults should be available for use during cast just like everything else with your pet is.
- I don’t have an issue with ekindle honestly
- the drop in damage for Ruin without dots or ruination needs adjusting going from 12-14k to a 6k ruin 3 because dots fell off right before DWT is annoying.
- tri disaster could use a lower cd but honestly I don’t know how that would effect rotations.
- aetherflow serves littler purpose now

There are more things that can be done but for me those are some of the bigger ones.

Eh that's where we differ. I like having a lot going on and I think SMN is already pretty fun except at low lvls, your suggestion there sounds incredibly dull to me. Meh to each their own.

-Dots can be refreshed a few seconds early and it's very clear to see when they'll need refreshing, you can plan for it so I don't think it's clunky at all. Plus we can instantly refresh both about half the time with Tri-Disaster and spread them stupidly easily. Make it any easier than that and they may as well not be there.
-We lack mobility tools but have the trade-off of always dealing damage through dots and egis while also having instants we can spam at lower potency so we don't need to always be casting as much. We can use Ruin 4 to better position ourselves without losing dmg as well. Don't think we need teleports.
-Ifrit could definitely be better, I agree - SMN imo should be about summons first and foremost.
-Idk why we'd need egi assults useable during cast, they're already ogcd.
-Ruin scaling with dots is annoying, it leaves us very much lacking when things need to die quickly; we already lose damage just by not having the dots up it kinda sucks to be punished even more, especially at low lvls when we don't have any cds to help make up for the lack of up front damage.
-Aetherflow is pretty useless as far as the overall design of the class goes, that's true. Doesn't mean it's bad, but could be better.

[TankHunter678]

Ifrit-egi should match Ruin 3's damage in 5 attacks. Ifrit comes in swinging for 40 effective potency, and ruin 3 is only 200 potency.

Pet tooltips say how much potency it would be for the player, but the pets themselves actually suffer a potency nerf. This is noticable when you actually run the math and look at the damage numbers that pop up on level appropriate targets and SCH's fairy healing.


Now as for Summoner, if you stick with Trances then treat the egi's as kinda the starter we get that upgrades into demi-primals. To help showcase the growth in power in the player that allows them to draw upon stronger forms as they become more capable.

I personally still want there to be dots, it helps separate from the other caster classes and I am a fan of quoting those toxin troopers from the red alert series "Spread the DOOM" every time I hit bane. Not to mention, every Summoner in FF history has been more then just summons but also another caster type. No reason to make our Summoner basically a BLM clone with Summons, that has already been done before in FF.

[Taranok]

Pet tooltips say how much potency it would be for the player, but the pets themselves actually suffer a potency nerf. This is noticable when you actually run the math and look at the damage numbers that pop up on level appropriate targets and SCH's fairy healing.

Yes, it's an 80 potency attack at 50% strength, so it hits for 40 potency. I actually tested this myself not too long ago.

[Mansion]

I'm afraid that flavour concerns about new egis / trances would make things even more awkward and complex than they need to be, really.

My main problem with SMN in 5.0 (outside the bugs in Demi-summons) is the incredible punishing aspect of moving / the almost inexistant freedom in the rotation.
4.0 SMN had its flaws, but you could fairly well plan your DWT in between two aetherflows to move freely. Same with Bahamut, you could hold it a bit until you found a time where you don't need to move so much. And Ruin II wasn't THAT bad.
Now Trances can't really be delayed, and we have a lot of lockouts that need weaving (Energy Drain, Fester / Egi Actions), but our weaving tool is not that flexible. This snowballs in a complex priority shift, that needs re-synch each time a boss becomes untargetable. That being said, I don't mind SMN's rotation being "harder" to grasp than RDM or BLM, but I do when the struggle is barely worth it.

So redesigning it into more Demis, Egis and stuff... I'm not sure it's manageable and enjoyable beyond pure aesthetics.

[Goji1639]

As a novice and from a purely superficial perspective, egi's just need to go. Summons in a FF game should be imposing and epic. Demi's seem to capture that well, but egi's are just lame looking accessories with pitiful damage. So, I'd like to see egi's removed entirely and the class built entirely around Demi's you can call for small periods of crazy burst damage.

The summoner rotation, dot stacking, whatever could be moreso ritualistic in terms of setting up the conditions to summon a Demi, where the majority of the damage comes from the summon itself. Add a few more awesome looking Demi's all with different conditions that need to be met before summoning, and we have a fun FF summoner class. That's the concept I'd like, anyways; no idea how practical it could be made for the content that exists.

[Akimitsu]

Why do people feel so compelled to make their own threads about a job that is already being discussed in a main thread, all the time? "My thoughts about this, my changes about that". Just bump the dedicated threads. Reading this for developpers must be so cringy. Especially considering how much casual and irrelevant comments are made in each and every of these threads.
But I'm gonna play that game too since I took the time to rent, it's not like it changes anything, considering how irresponsive SE has been towards SMN feedback in general.

_ Upgrade ruin and ruin 2 with ruin 3 and 4, just have them work the same as ruin 1 and 2, this spell should only be a temporary filler between Demi trances, and upon entering trances be replaced with the demi tied skills.
_ Keep egis, or remove them, but just make them a glorified auto attack (no more egi assaults or anything, just auto attack). If they are kept, keep the Ifrit single target, Garuda AoE, lolTitan defense theme.
_ Implement a new Trance that precedes Bahamut and Phoenix : Demi Garuda/Ifrit/Titan, if egis are kept, just replace the current egi with a demi version of itself.
_ Remove Aetherpact and instead, make it an effect that each Demi activates upon being summoned (like Everlasting Flight). Current one should go to summon Bahamut, and I'm sure it'd be easy enough to figure out not too game breaking ones for Ifrit Garuda and Titan.
_ Consolidate Trance into Summon Bahamut, like Firebird Trance. All demi trances should work like Phoenix trance with their own respective versions of Fountain of fire, Brand of purgatory and Revelation.
_ Remove Energy drain and syphon (just keep the animation for idk, the equivalent of Fountain of fire, but for Bahamut). This also means removing Aetherflow of course.
_ Either make recasting dots manually mendatory, or just have tri disaster reset with every trance so we don't have to bother anymore.
_ Make Fester a 20 or 30 sec ogcd.

Given that all this removes a few action slots, some stuff would have to be added, but there are a lot of skill animations that got deleted and could make a comeback easily...

The sad thing is no matter what better version of SMN we might get with the next xpac, I'm really not holding my breath for a positive rework until then, just expecting some temporary fixes like the ones given to MNK, just to make it work as it is, but not more pleasant to play.

[Atamis]

Because nobody has the time or care to read through 30+ pages of arguments?

[Madoka]

People have been asking for 6 years for SMN to be completely reworked and into their own vision of what a SMN should be. Except they miss the part where what they think it should be is just a black mage with summoned monsters popping out to do the attack animation or simply things that won't work in an MMO in the style of XIV. It's baffling to me. We will never be Rydia or a Caller or Yuna. Rydia was 80% black mage, Callers just used golem and then whatever summon did the most damage in a particular fight, Yuna replaced her whole party for a single party member that did the same thing as any other character could but had bigger stats.