Is Summoner currently fun to play?

[dinnertime]

Personally, I think it's an absolute chore to play. Used to love SMN in XI or other titles and I really like that we got more summons but the pet changes are just bad and so are the million buttons you have to press. It feels gutted and clunky. Shame for such an iconic job. I hope Yoshi and his team can figure out what to do with it.

Personally I like that it's a chore. The gameplay has always been about micromanagement and I like the feeling of being busy. Black Mage and especially Red Mage lacks that which ends up boring me due to how straightforward they are to play.

Admittedly, version 5.0 was too much and actually felt like a chore, though. Before that and past that (except 3.0) it's acceptable.

[SweetPete]

I don’t like where summoner is now. Yes, it’s one of the top dps jobs in the game if you know what you are doing. I love the job but a 2 minute opener is just ridiculous to me. Egi-assaults don’t even go off sometimes before you call a Demi-primal. It’s super clunky and all that. It’s my main dps job but I truly hope they give it a rework in 6.0. Honestly, I feel that summoner pets are going away in 6.0 and honestly I hope they do. They are a clunky mess.

[Nemekh]

Pet AI is bad and is arguably the worst part of the job atm, but when it comes to EAs and pet commands one should never EA before Bahamut nor FBT because of the pet withdraw and respawn system with pet swaps. In the vast majority of cases it will cause the EA or command to ghost entirely losing the Further Ruin stack, damage or other effects. I plan on making a larger post about pets, their bugs/AI and why they've not been a success over the years. I ultimately would not be sad to see this duct-taped relic of a pet system scrapped. The Summon Order system on top of the base pet gambits just makes it all worse.

Fwiw the core openers are technically 6 GCDs then it segues into a Bahamut rotation. 14 GCDs if we include the full Bahamut rotation since His window ending is when the opener infusion is about to fade. We did meme hard about the 2 minute prepull opener, but in reality and in practice it's far from 2 minutes and not unlike the openers other DPS jobs have to contend with. What SMN always has had is a lot of abilities to get on cooldown asap to start spinning all the plates - people would call them piano openers, yet once they're done it's back to quiet filler.

[Connor]

Maybe I just have a high tolerance for bad things, but I fairly enjoy the current iteration of Summoner. I don’t know anything about dps values or raid viability and balance, so I just mean in terms of the actual job itself.

Part of me likes the way Summoner cycles through trances and Bahamut / Phoenix. Egi actions feel a bit less annoying than before at the very least lol, it doesn’t feel like I’m shouting commands at the Egi and getting a blank stare in return. I like that Summoner has some utility stuff too like Raise, Devotion, Addle since it feels like I can contribute in a more diverse way (actual rDPS values aside lol). I feel like they developers are still trying to channel some of the Arcanist’s ‘tactical’ roots with abilities like this, even if it that does exactly come through. Aesthetically it’s still one of my favourite jobs, I think the spells and summons all look pretty cool, though obviously Egis could stand to look a bit less...formless lol.

At the same time though, it can feel a bit like a conveyor belt (for want of a better word lol). You’re just cycling through the same abilities in the same order for the most part, and there’s not really any freedom to decide. Like, wouldn’t it be cool if you could decide whether to summon Bahamut and Phoenix? Aetherflow feels weird since it’s happening behind Trances instead of being linked to them, so it’s like having these two disjointed job gauges that both want your attention right now, but there’s only so many oGCDs you can do at the one time lol.

Overall I like Summoner how it is now, it certainly isn’t perfect, but then I think every job has its ‘pros and cons’, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it if you play a job and think ‘couldn’t this be better?’. It’s natural to want to improve something you like I guess

[Payadopa]

Personally I like that it's a chore. The gameplay has always been about micromanagement and I like the feeling of being busy. Black Mage and especially Red Mage lacks that which ends up boring me due to how straightforward they are to play.

Admittedly, version 5.0 was too much and actually felt like a chore, though. Before that and past that (except 3.0) it's acceptable.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. I like challenging jobs. It's just that for me SMN just doesn't feel that way. It's more like it got changed so much that we have a mess of a job left. Pets not being targetable for instance. Or that I can't decide whether I want to summon Bahamut or Phoenix. I'm also not a big fan of DoTs on SMN. Really tried to like it and got it to lvl 80 in ShB (I try to switch mains every expansion) but it's just not for me, sadly.

Honestly, XI's version was way better in how adaptable it was. 2.0 retained it to a degree but now... I dunno.

I'm actually surprised that SMN wasn't simplified (also not a fan of that) since healers and tanks got hit hard this expac. Haha

[dinnertime]

...

To each their own. Though, I don't think current Summoner is perfect and I want to see it become less clunky, more Summoner-like and have more variety in gameplay like being able to pick the Demi summon (with different uses this time than being Bahamut > Better Bahamut) that's appropriate in the current situation. DoTs meanwhile are becoming more and more of an afterthought with the job and I wouldn't be too surprised if they outright remove it next expansion, especially due to unpopularity.

Personally I was never a fan of FFXI Summoner's gameplay but it did pull off the summoning part at least. I just prefer the Trances, incredibly strong but temporary summons and the fast-paced action of FFXIV's version a lot more.

Also I think Summoner right now is a bit more straightforward to play (not simplified like I said before) than the older iterations for how strict the rotation is and how mobile it's been. Back then you had some time to hold off on abilities without DPS loss which was an accidentally smart job design on SE's part, and there's some tactical planning in it that's mostly absent now.

[Dyvid]

I think SMN has all the right tool currently, just needs to be reshuffled to make the job flow. Sadly that isn't going to happen till 6.X series...

[ty_taurus]

I have a bit of a radical idea for how I'd like to see Summoner redesigned, so here's the overview in parts and you guys can share whether this is an awesome idea or a horrible one...

First, Summon II and III are removed. You only have Summon which always will bring your Carbuncle to your side (with more colors so that players can pick their favorite color). Egis in the current sense are no more (but not entirely removed). Carbuncle now attacks you as you cast spells on enemies, similarly to Wyrmwave with hopefully less bugginess. Carbuncle only gets replaced when you Demi-Summon. At level 15, Ruby Light replaces Summon II (which is Titan's barrier spell for tanking. I've thought about trying to have a targetable Carbuncle for Summon II but I feel like it would just get messy), and at level 50, Enkindle is replaced with Shining Ruby, a simple oGCD attack that shares a recast timer with Ruby Light. Perhaps both are stackable to 2 stacks and have a 30 second cool down. All of this is shared.

Instead of getting the egis, Ruin gets replaced with Egi Flame when obtaining Summoner. Egi Flame summons Ifrit-Egi for a brief swing of his claw before he disappears. Ruin II gets replaced with Egi Crush with Titain-Egi, and Outbreak gets replaced with Egi Cyclone. Your Egis are now your basic spells instead of Ruin. Later, these spells will get upgraded to summon a portion of Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda rather than their Egi form. You don't see their entire model, but a part of their model from a glyph you create a-la Yuna in Dissidia 012.

Dreadwyrm Trance now temporarily changes these to more powerful versions of your basic spells, but instead of Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan, you summon Leviathan, Ramuh, and Shiva for these attacks during Dreadwyrm Trance, and then you can summon Demi-Bahamut. During Firebird Trance, these get replaced with even stronger attacks from Bismark, Ravana, and Thordan.

Fester and Painflare are upgraded to attacks from Susano-o and Tsukiyomi later in levels, and Aetherpact is changed to Alluring Embrace from Lakshmi. Fester and Painflare as well as their upgrades would no longer be connected to Energy Drain/Syphon which would both be removed. Instead, they're just oGCD attacks, but would add power to your aether gauge for summoning and trancing--a more simplified version of what Stormblood's Summoner was like. All your summoning attacks would charge this gauge outside of carbuncle attacks.

Your Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan spells would be changed to attacks from Demi-Bahamut and Demi-Phoenix while those demis are summoned, and their attacks like Enkindle Bahamut would replace Shining Ruby, while an alternative barrier/heal perhaps would replace Ruby Light.

[Macleod]

I just care whether or not it's fun to play in it's current state.

You are the only one that can decide this.

[Vitreus]

I've heard a lot of people love it but I have yet to get back into it despite it being my favorite job in Stormblood. It's just really unclear what the rotation and all the guides are designed around level 80 so it's just chilling at level 70.