Summoner Early Post-Launch Feedback at level 80

[Exodus-E]

You keep saying "we" and "our" job like you own the thing. That "Join Date: Jun 2018" under your portrait seems to indicate you are only a recent SMN who likes the warlock feel and feels hell bend on keepign the status quo.

Ad hominem. Classy.

Me, I've been "maining" SMN since (nearly) the beginning, and while I may agree and disagree with the various points that were made throughout this topic, the bottom line is that its (current) problems don't involve the Egis themselves thematically, or even aesthetically.

Mechanically, however, it's a fair point.
Like making them more "impactful" (or at the very least, not tying them with a Ruin IV proc') would solve a lot of their problems.

[Atamis]

Ad hominem. Classy.

Me, I've been "maining" SMN since (nearly) the beginning, and while I may agree and disagree with the various points that were made throughout this topic, the bottom line is that the problem(s) with SMN right now isn't the Egis themselves as a concept (or even aesthetically).

Mechanically, however, it's a fair point.
Like making them more responsive/engaging/etc would solve their problems.

And i'm not arguing against that, Ad hominem is no worse that false authority as if the two people he met on discord are somehow the consensus among SMNs.
I've been on and off maining SMN since day one myself. Was a WHM in 1.0 anticipating SMN at some point before the relaunch was announced. Since day 1 I have complained about the Egi concept. I don't like them at all, but i am willing to work around them if possible. No amount of people trying to defend the current summoner will alter that opinion. It is very clear SE themselves gave up on Egis when they decided to let people glamour them back into any color or carbuncle you had. They abandoned the leviathin and ramuh glamour plans, they abandoned Ramuh-egi in the quest line itself.
If we keep the egis, great, just make them actually part of the job and not just a dot, and for god sakes don't give me the two abilities they previously did on auto attack before. Frankly a well done Egi based summoner would just be a down scaled Yuna style summoner where you are directly controlling the summon.
I think they would be better off continuing this Trance based summoner they've been building. The closest thing the frachise has had to that would be Terra becomming an Esper herself. A complete rework where the SMN itself becomes the primal in part would go over well i think. The current Pheonix (I really do enjoy this bird, it works pretty well) has shown that replacing skills as a trance works fine, using that as a concept for the rest of the summoner would work fine as well.

[Exodus-E]

It is very clear SE themselves gave up on Egis when they decided to let people glamour them back into any color or carbuncle you had. They abandoned the leviathin and ramuh glamour plans, they abandoned Ramuh-egi in the quest line itself.

Personally, I blame BLU's side development (as well as BRD's Performance) for their massive setback.
But according to various sources (LLs/Q&As/interviews/etc.) from 2018-2019, it seems like there's a higher chance that we'll finally get them throughout 5.X (with 5.1 being the earliest; if not, then at the very least some official statements on the matter).

[HeulGDarian]

You keep saying "we" and "our" job like you own the thing. That "Join Date: Jun 2018" under your portrait seems to indicate you are only a recent SMN who likes the warlock feel and feels hell bend on keepign the status quo.

that join in 2018 is the day i joined the forums not the game i joined in late heavensward. and i have respect for those who actually played the job before me and for those who joined after me. I DONT have respect for those who don't want to join the job before we do a big overhaul so that THEY can get into it. Smn shouldn't adjust to appeal to everyone Smn being an appealing job and you being appealed to it are 2 different matters . If you don't find the job appealing ,you don't have to play it but it most certainly doesn't need a rework because you think its unappealing.
those guys present all those changes like they're the godsent saviors who will bring into the game with their ideas finally the "true summoner". Like we are the fake summoners that drag the job down by liking the whole work and presenting fixes in order to make the class better .

[HeulGDarian]

And i'm not arguing against that, Ad hominem is no worse that false authority as if the two people he met on discord are somehow the consensus among SMNs.
I've been on and off maining SMN since day one myself. Was a WHM in 1.0 anticipating SMN at some point before the relaunch was announced. Since day 1 I have complained about the Egi concept. I don't like them at all, but i am willing to work around them if possible. No amount of people trying to defend the current summoner will alter that opinion. It is very clear SE themselves gave up on Egis when they decided to let people glamour them back into any color or carbuncle you had. They abandoned the leviathin and ramuh glamour plans, they abandoned Ramuh-egi in the quest line itself.
If we keep the egis, great, just make them actually part of the job and not just a dot, and for god sakes don't give me the two abilities they previously did on auto attack before. Frankly a well done Egi based summoner would just be a down scaled Yuna style summoner where you are directly controlling the summon.
I think they would be better off continuing this Trance based summoner they've been building. The closest thing the frachise has had to that would be Terra becomming an Esper herself. A complete rework where the SMN itself becomes the primal in part would go over well i think. The current Pheonix (I really do enjoy this bird, it works pretty well) has shown that replacing skills as a trance works fine, using that as a concept for the rest of the summoner would work fine as well.

To fix the egis or make that part something else. Sure i totally agree with you on that . There is no need to ask for more trance based play since that's where the job is heading anyways and i agree it is fun and great gameplay.

This is why when other people say that we should remove everything because it doesn't fit their aesthetics its making me angry. Were obviously going to get more demis with time if we rehaul we would have to rehaul the demis as well i just want to see the job through to the end.

[GUkraine]

I finally got my SMN to 80 and it just feels bad. I don't have many other classes at level cap, but coming from BLM which has one of the best class designs at max level, or even low level SAM, its very apparent that SMN is a janky class that needs a rework. The fact that most times I only get 7/8 bahamut casts off because of stupid little bugs is kinda unacceptable from a design standpoint. There are also several skills that need to be consolidated into 1. Why isn't Deathflare baked into Enkindle Bahamut? Why isnt DWT built into Summon Bahamut (when I say built in, I mean switch from 1 skill to the other on the same keybind). Why aren't egi-assaults just auto done by the summons? Actually, why are egi's even a thing really? They do so very little damage and just add excessive amounts of clunkiness to the class, heck even ifrit can barely keep uptime during some encounters. I really don't understand how the class got to this point.

[Tulzscha]

those guys present all those changes like they're the godsent saviors who will bring into the game with their ideas finally the "true summoner"

Haha I kinda do that, though just because making stuff up is fun, that’s all. There’s another thread for that kinda nonsense now though. ^^

I don’t have many issues with SMN as it is now, the few things I can think of are in the 1st post though most of the things listed there don’t bother me. The things that do: Aetherflow being separated from trance (personal preference, I like when things work together, gives it all more meaning), Devotion timing with FBT (not a big deal just annoying), speaking of which DWT timing as well (a slight delay and it’s just a little too short) and less flexibility with cds (still have some though). Our healing spells are kinda annoying because they don’t really do anything, just seems like a trap for players who don’t know better. I still spam Physik when there’s nothing to attack in raids though lol.

But mainly Ruin scaling with dots irks me. Damage over time effects are situational, you don’t want to use them on things that aren’t going to live long enough for them to matter, and if they are going to live long enough it’s a given we should use them, so why punish us further for not using them? All it does is make it harder to kill low health adds that need to die quickly.

Egis not feeling impactful, that’s part numbers and part design. They could be better for sure but gameplay wouldn’t change much if at all to buff them and well if they were buffed it would make playing a SMN that much more brain dead because it’s passive damage and that’s no good either. So barring some kind of overhaul which isn’t gonna happen, they’re fine. I would like to feel less bad about pulling out Titan for a shield in the middle of a fight but hey healers need something to do amirite.

Lower levels feel pretty bad, I try not to play SMN in any scaled down dungeon if I can help it. Really would like to see that improved. Oftentimes things die so fast I don’t have time to apply dots, I don’t have Tri-Disaster, I don’t have any cds, all I have is a filler spell that scales with dots I don’t have time to cast and get any real benefit from. And Energy Drain + Fester which is the only saving grace. Bleh.

Other than that I’m cool with everything. Some bigger numbers might be nice but who doesn’t want those

There is no need to ask for more trance based play since that's where the job is heading anyways and i agree it is fun and great gameplay.

Duuuuude you can tell the future?? ;P But yeah it’s pretty great.

[Hezzlocks]

But mainly Ruin scaling with dots irks me. Damage over time effects are situational, you don’t want to use them on things that aren’t going to live long enough for them to matter, and if they are going to live long enough it’s a given we should use them, so why punish us further for not using them? All it does is make it harder to kill low health adds that need to die quickly.

I've only just started leveling SMN, partly because I'm interested in SMN and partly because healer and caster are the last two role quests left for me to do, so hey two birds and all that, but I've really felt this issue very recently in Aurum Vale.

Normally when I go to the Vale I'll easily aoe down the morbol eggs, but as SMN, well, two eggs means Outburst isn't really worth it but DoTs are too slow. I came to realise that dropping Garuda's attacks on them helped a lot but killing those eggs never felt more awkward than on a SMN.

Actually I also had this trouble on the last boss of Sunken Temple normal. Killing the ankh things that enclose themselves to do a big aoe feels very tight as a SMN, something I never had issue with as other DPS classes. This makes it problematic when I'm the only one killing them.

I'm still only low level so I don't know how often this comes up later but having mained a Warlock in WoW it feels very similar in that when things die super fast or you only have a short time to kill something when you need time to ramp up your damage, I imagine these awkward moments will probably pop up more times than I'd like

[Madoka]

Yeah, most of the design choices in 5.0 for smn contribute to that feeling like garbage on small aoe or low health targets. FesterRuins, egi damage drastically dropped, dot potencies dropped, outburst just being bad in general. Some of these things could be fixed if they either reverted the design back or tossed some SCH skills onto SMN. Like replacing outburst with Art of War. It would just be like going back to when we used Ice 2 for big aoe, except a real potency. And they need to make Bahamut, or just egis in general use their skills immediately after you tell them too and not override them to move around if you move.

I really hope the Japanese forums share similar opinions.

[dinnertime]

I really hope the Japanese forums share similar opinions.

They're just as unhappy as we are, and largely have the same complaints. In fact, they're actually more vocal about it.