So what's wrong with Summoner?

[HeulGDarian]

The only wrong about smn rn is that the removals of aetherflow nerfed it to clunky degrees, the rest are problem with pets SE didnt fix. The only other problem is that speaking about smn in forums opens the gate to FF hell that think smn isnt smn since he isnt Just summoning or like their fanfic iterations they took 1 hour to make.

[HeulGDarian]

No really put on a raincoat get an umbrella find some cover call doomslayer, whatever the fuck else you can think. Prepare yourself bullshit is coming

[Crushnight]

From what i've experienced as a novice and what me friend who mains it say, the issues we find are;
- ghosting is still very much a thing that stupidly got put on Sch too,
-Bahamut and Phoenix still wanna hug my booty despite having more than enough range to be stationary upon spawn location and be hitting any target,
-is too strong for what it has,
-has excess buttons for pointless things eg Dreadwyrm Trance and death flare as seperate when can't do latter before former,
-is constantly being changed too much every expansion to then be re-looked at and subsequently buffed too much (2nd expansion in row will they go a turkey with 6.0 :P)

[Miminming]

We are a ghost user,

1.Pet ghosting, bahamut ghosting, phoenix ghosting
2.Bahamut following the user despite able to attack from nearly anywhere
3.Ghosting GHOST ghost
4.It feels clunky definately better than 5.xx but feel a backwards compared 4.5
5.The job design is all over the place is it Dot based job? Pet based? Ruin based!? minor but annoy me...
6.Probably just me but i hate the 55s trance cooldown

Overall not that bad but one of the worse jobs in min-maxing and seriously when will they fix the ghosting problem...

(I welcome the bug level damage part HAHAHA)

[KaerisKlyne]

As a SMN main and someone who enjoys the job as it currently plays, I can say it def has design issues. However, I think it also plays very smoothly right now from a mechanical standpoint barring some hiccups.

1. The pet ghosting is really rough. Things just...don't happen sometimes lol.

2. I'm fine with filler spells like the Ruin line, but DoTs feel out of place more and more as the demi-summons and trances become a bigger part of the job's toolkit. I understand them coming from a base class, but it's always felt like SMN got DoTs as a focus because the game just...needed a DoT job and nothing else fit?

3. Thematic mess. DWT and FBT should function similarly, Hammy doesn't need its own cycle, there's no real relationship between the DoTs and egi/demis. If inflicting damage over time drew aether out of targets to fill a gauge for summoning stronger one-off summons as oGCDs, for example, I could understand the relationship between SMN having infectious/syphoning abilities alongside abilities that use that syphoned aether. As it is right now, the kit is just unrelated things put together for the sake of needing to work.

[CKNovel]

SMN is the perfect opposite of a healthy job.

I feel that the rotation is now completely disconnected. Before, it was spending Aether stacks to get the Bahamut Trance. Then after 2 Bahamut Trance, you got Demi-Baba.

Now Aetherstacks are completely disconnected from Trance and the ability is a set cooldown. And Bahamut trance is now a 15s stance that makes you instant-cast. It resets Tri-disaster and allows the use of DeathFlare but there is no reason to keep the stance as much as possible, it just makes Ruin instant. Also the weird dot rotation, most of the time you resets your dots with Tri-Disaster but you still need to cast the dots yourself once or so every cycle.

SMN also has around 60% instant cast, but 20% of these casts are punishable due to poorly coded pets. Pets will prioritize movement over damaging which can make you loose a Bahamut action for example.

Pet laaaaaaag that will cause you to ghost skills and their clunky unresponsive abilities. But that's the same for all the pets expects SMN/SCH are the only job that needs to give direct orders.

Balancing wise, SMN is simply unbalanced. It can plays like a ranged, perform as well as a BLM and is even better on multiple targets, it can also res to help with the progress. But physick heals for nothing while VerCure heals normally.

I really liked HW SMN despite the garuda memes, SB SMN was special and enjoyable, but ShB SMN? It's a mess that I can't enjoy.

[AbelArchaniEA]

Nothing. You are what’s wrong with the community. Making claims about a job you are clueless about based on rumor.

[Mansion]

SMN is the perfect opposite of a healthy job.

I feel that the rotation is now completely disconnected. Before, it was spending Aether stacks to get the Bahamut Trance. Then after 2 Bahamut Trance, you got Demi-Baba.

Now Aetherstacks are completely disconnected from Trance and the ability is a set cooldown. And Bahamut trance is now a 15s stance that makes you instant-cast. It resets Tri-disaster and allows the use of DeathFlare but there is no reason to keep the stance as much as possible, it just makes Ruin instant. Also the weird dot rotation, most of the time you resets your dots with Tri-Disaster but you still need to cast the dots yourself once or so every cycle.

That's the only thing that comes to my mind. As a job, talking about rotation, gameplay and identity, SMN can feel like struggling to embrace its identity. It has to deal with its ACN background (being a DoT mage / Aetherstacks), and then all its past addition kind of stack upon one another. You have to deal with egis (2.X), Trances (3.X), Demi (4.X) and 5.X added some kind of synthesis of 3.X and 4.X while breaking the "logical flow" that we had just before (stacks into trance into demi).

Ruins and DoTs don't feel Summoner-ly to some players.
Aetherstacks feel disconnected from pretty much anything right now (no interaction with Demis nor Egis)
Egis are out of date now that we have Demis which perform better.
But Demis are linked to Egis just for the sake of keeping Egis.

But the job performs VERY well in high end content, so the focus tends to shift upon balance rather than these rotation/identity issues.

And on top of that, you have pet ghosting which has been mentioned earlier in this topic.

[VentVanitas]

Nothing. You are what’s wrong with the community. Making claims about a job you are clueless about based on rumor.

You sound like a fun guy.

Just let them discuss what they think what's wrong with SMN, stop being so close minded by making strange baseless claims yourself by saying their sharing of opinions is "what's wrong with the community."

No job in the game is perfect, and that's why they're worthy of discussion no matter how complete they may be.

[Shriex]

Nothing. You are what’s wrong with the community. Making claims about a job you are clueless about based on rumor.

Thanks for the feeback. Also, go eat a bag of dicks.