Summoner: An action or a dot?

[HeulGDarian]

When I talk about action or a dot I'm talking about the summon/pet itself. I love the dot system of Summoner and Scholar. In my opinion this game could do with more dot jobs. My issue is that the summon itself (the egis) are boring as dot "pets" that stay at your side the entire fight. Then they go and make the job even more convoluted with the demi primal system with bahamut/phoenix. But once again I have to point out, this is about the summon and its function, Leave the summoner skills as they are. As stated in the full OP, should summons be dots or a 1 time big attack summon using your job gauge (as they were in past classic FFs, except for a few like X, XI, and XII).
Some made a really great point here, the version of Summoner that has its summon at its side is not actually summoning but instead they're just walking around with a pet. A summon is a temporary entity that's supposed to return to its point of origin, that's not what we see with XIV's Summoner.

You can make a summon interesting and have it stay at your side believe it or not. Its just a hierarchy where egis are made from a part of your aether , and demis are made from aether you trance . If we had rouse then we could maybe get an upgrade where they transform into a more powerfull form, as of now the spells we can play around are assault 1 and 2 , devotion, enkindle and their auto. Ill agree on that they dont have a "summoning" like demi bahamut where you actively have to trance, something that is less than half of what it was after they butchered aetherflow out of us, it still hurt us gameplay wise btw. However one attack summons feel like going backwards , After 10 came out going back into old style summons just feels bad, and yes i will take egis over that any time, cause egis look like they will be upgraded.

[ArcaneCarbuncle]

I'll keep my Egi, thank you very much.

I've always loved the concept of summoning, but the way earlier iterations of the Job present it as more of a gimmicky Black Mage has always felt lackluster.
It wasn't until summoning became more interactive that It truly started to shine, so i feel going back one-hit-wonder summoning would be a disservice to not only the job but the concept a a whole.

Given the Jobs evolution towards interactivity I always thought that a pet class would be a nice fit for the Job in an MMO, so I'm pretty happy with the general idea and think it functions well enough as this game iteration of Summoner.
Its certainly not flawless, there's plenty of things they could do better; but it's far from broken enough to require a complete overhaul - which should always be a last resort anyway. Most issues are either fixable or unrelated to the Egi in the first place, and any complaints about the aesthetics will hopefully be adressed whenever Egi-Glam are rolled out (which they've recently confirmed they are still working on btw.)

I would also like to point out that the FF-Franchise as a whole didn't survive as long as it did by blindly clinging on to tradition; the games have never been afraid to change and evolve concepts, ideas and Jobs depending on the setting, medium and technology at the time, and if I'm reading this thread - heck even the entire Forum sometimes - I feel some people would do good remembering that.
Don't get me wrong; It's fine to not like the way this game handles Summoner (or any job for that matter), but asking the devs to change it completely when theres clearly plenty of people enjoying at least the basic idea is not.

[Amnmaat]

I just harken back to the origin of summoning in rpgs and ask thee to harken back to what the purpose of summoning vs having a pet is all about. You guys would be more at home with Beastmaster than with Summoner, from how I'm analyzing your preferences.
I can instantly understand why they said they would make Beastmaster a limited job now, because we already have a pet job and some don't want to seem to let go of their pet ifrit, garuda, titan.

Thought there would be more support for one attack summons, interesting that there's not.

[MirronTulaxia]

I mean, I think you could have Egis and still make a more proper Summoner. It doesn't have to be an either or kind of thing.

[HeulGDarian]

Er... Summoner is in a whole heck of a lot as a solo job other than III and V. XI, Tactics line, others as well. And the point is that there is still a clear delineation between Summoning Magic and anything else a Hybrid character uses. It's like using Rosa as an argument for White Mages being spliced with Rangers.

And my point has never been about how much fun it is or is not, it's that it isn't a proper Summoner. Trying to appeal to me with weak pathos rhetoric like that will get you nowhere.

You think that im trying to appeal to you? im trying to correct the misinformation of what is and isnt a summoner. You cant pick what matches your point of view and then discard the rest, and this is what you are doing , especially when out of all the game a total of 3 from the main series , arguably 2 had a pure summoner , 1 of which had a system akin to current egi system, and from non main series we have a total of 4 , arguably 2 since 3 of them are an actual series, unlike the main ones which each is distinct between them.

[MirronTulaxia]

You think that im trying to appeal to you? im trying to correct the misinformation of what is and isnt a summoner. You cant pick what matches your point of view and then discard the rest, and this is what you are doing , especially when out of all the game a total of 3 from the main series , arguably 2 had a pure summoner , 1 of which had a system akin to current egi system, and from non main series we have a total of 4 , arguably 2 since 3 of them are an actual series, unlike the main ones which each is distinct between them.

The point isn't whether any particular character was a pure job. The point was "can we look at these jobs and say what they actually are". And... you can. You can look at III. You can look at IV. You can look at V and so on and so forth all the way to Dimensions and get a clear idea of what a Summoner is. Whether or not any individual character was a "pure" Summoner is moot, a lot of times characters aren't purely one job in games like that. Are we to look at Rosa and say "well all White Mages should be Rangers"? Are we to look at Kimahri and say "well all Dragoons should be Blue Mages"? No, because that's a ridiculous stance. And ultimately that's what you're putting forward. We don't have any pure "White Mage" characters, yet here in XIV we could manage that. They could have done the same with Summoner.

And you're distorting information and acting like it's meaningful. I'm not misrepresenting information nor am I lying, which is what misinformation would be in this case. I can back up my case with every single game. They make it abundantly clear what falls where.

[HeulGDarian]

The point isn't whether any particular character was a pure job. The point was "can we look at these jobs and say what they actually are". And... you can. You can look at III. You can look at IV. You can look at V and so on and so forth all the way to Dimensions and get a clear idea of what a Summoner is. Whether or not any individual character was a "pure" Summoner is moot, a lot of times characters aren't purely one job in games like that. Are we to look at Rosa and say "well all White Mages should be Rangers"? Are we to look at Kimahri and say "well all Dragoons should be Blue Mages"? No, because that's a ridiculous stance. And ultimately that's what you're putting forward. We don't have any pure "White Mage" characters, yet here in XIV we could manage that. They could have done the same with Summoner.

And you're distorting information and acting like it's meaningful. I'm not misrepresenting information nor am I lying, which is what misinformation would be in this case. I can back up my case with every single game. They make it abundantly clear what falls where.

Im not distorting it, i take all the things you discarded as meaningless , cause they didnt fit your point of view and tell you they do mean something.
When they introduce yuna as the grand summoner, ready to do her pilgrimage , do you think they also put small letters below her name saying "but she can also use white magic"? ,
Do you think Rydia someone from the pure blood summoner families , shouldnt be called such cause she knows black magic as well? ,
What about eiko with her summoner horn, you know the thing literally needed to talk to summons in that universe, should we also put some small letters on it saying "actually whm".
These are all characters that according to you are moot, and shouldnt be taken into account. In almost every game there is a summoning system ,some are more different than the other like in the case of ff8 and ff13, but even then you cant just say they are moot just cause there isnt a job there called summoner.
ill say it again , what they did in ff14 is simple , instead of giving it a sub system of black magic , or white magic they instead gave summoner its own rules of summoning , that he could apply to do more than summon.
You think that its something as irrational as saying blue mages should be dragoons. it isnt because we re not talking about something as farfetched as a melee fighter and a spell caster, we re talking about 2 mages who in many iterations have shared space and now they split them apart, should bio have gone to the blm since it was categorised as black magic? NO cause it doesnt suit him, it fits perfectly a job like summoner cause unlike black magic , summoning takes time to do in this game. Summoning something that most ff games have it reduced on a cast time is now an active thing.

[Eloah]

Stuff

Ah what a delicious can of worms this has become.

Also I think the point your missing is that Summoning in general changes from game to game there is no end all beat all regarding what is right or wrong. The point is calling forth monsters (of eld) to fight for you. it in the similar fashion to how technically Pictomancer is a spoof on Beast Tamer, or how SCH and RDM are two sides of the same coin when you think about it. Each job just has a "defining" trait, that sets it apart from the rest, and for SMN that's summoning.

[MirronTulaxia]

Im not distorting it, i take all the things you discarded as meaningless , cause they didnt fit your point of view and tell you they do mean something.
When they introduce yuna as the grand summoner, ready to do her pilgrimage , do you think they also put small letters below her name saying "but she can also use white magic"? ,
Do you think Rydia someone from the pure blood summoner families , shouldnt be called such cause she knows black magic as well? ,
What about eiko with her summoner horn, you know the thing literally needed to talk to summons in that universe, should we also put some small letters on it saying "actually whm".
These are all characters that according to you are moot, and shouldnt be taken into account. In almost every game there is a summoning system ,some are more different than the other like in the case of ff8 and ff13, but even then you cant just say they are moot just cause there isnt a job there called summoner.
ill say it again , what they did in ff14 is simple , instead of giving it a sub system of black magic , or white magic they instead gave summoner its own rules of summoning , that he could apply to do more than summon.
You think that its something as irrational as saying blue mages should be dragoons. it isnt because we re not talking about something as farfetched as a melee fighter and a spell caster, we re talking about 2 mages who in many iterations have shared space and now they split them apart, should bio have gone to the blm since it was categorised as black magic? NO cause it doesnt suit him, it fits perfectly a job like summoner cause unlike black magic , summoning takes time to do in this game. Summoning something that most ff games have it reduced on a cast time is now an active thing.

They are all characters that are not just one job, yes. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. But let's shift this a bit.

Your argument is basically that, because no character is ever a pure Summoner, there shouldn't be a pure Summoner job in XIV. Yes or no?

Ah what a delicious can of worms this has become.

Also I think the point your missing is that Summoning in general changes from game to game there is no end all beat all regarding what is right or wrong. The point is calling forth monsters (of eld) to fight for you. it in the similar fashion to how technically Pictomancer is a spoof on Beast Tamer, or how SCH and RDM are two sides of the same coin when you think about it. Each job just has a "defining" trait, that sets it apart from the rest, and for SMN that's summoning.

My point has never been "we shouldn't have Egis", so you're misunderstanding the point. The point is they should have Summons and only that. I can point at that throughout the series and it's true.

[MariaArvana]

Thought there would be more support for one attack summons, interesting that there's not.

If you want to get technical, Summoners are in fact -summoning- all the time in FF14, its just not something huge and flashy is all outside of trances.

Also honestly, one and done attacks are boring imo. Trances & egis are much more exciting because there's a whole ton more interactivity with them than just pushing a button and watching a fancy animation. Which also quite frankly, wouldn't work in FF14 anyway. People already complain about certain Lb3's blocking AOEs from being visible due to how grandiose their animations are(Caster LB3, AST LB3), there's no way any form on 'grandiose one and done' animation would capture the same majesty as old FF summoning without causing the same issues, meaning their 'grand attacks' would basically be on the same level as Enkindle; a small, quick animation that would be a disservice in trying to emulate old FF SMN. (which also brings up the point that part of the fun of old SMN was seeing these ridiculous 30s+ animations, where in FF14 a pack could easily be dead before such an animation could finish.)

I also found infinitely more fun with FF10's & FF12's summons (and FF13's, to an extent) than any of the old FF's purely for the same reason; having them stick around and actually feel like they're fighting with the party is much more fun personally.