Fix Summoner Once and For All in 6.0 Please!

[Raikai]

That's extremely unlikely, since doing so would also remove Carbuncles as permanent pets, which would infuriate A LOT of people.
Also, it's far, far too late to do so from a story/lore standpoint.

Once again, the most practical/logical solution would be for them to continue adjusting them (especially their A.I. behavior), as well as implementing proper Egi glamours to be managed from a dedicated UI window (similar to how BLU's spellbook works).

They can just have the carbuncles and old egis being just cosmetic companions.

I think there's a reason why the pet gameplay has escalated into what it is today, and is probably not just some AI adjustment, but actually the foundation of that "sphagetti code" not letting them go all the way through with a proper functional pet AI.

Despite us, or them, either enjoying egis or not, if that's really the case, then it's better to just give the last blow on the pet gameplay, since it's nearly that to begin with...

[battleshadow66]

Or they could simply go back and "fix" Arcanist, so Summoner (and to a lesser extent, Scholar) gets fixed through it as well.
And once again, it's already way too late to separate them from a story/lore standpoint, which has been solid/consistent since ARR.

Also, you keep forgetting all the supplemental resources that rely on Summoner having Egis around (trailers, artwork, CG renders, encyclopaedia, etc.).

No thanks, the Arcanist toolkit doesn't even fit the SMN job well. It works well for Scholar though. Miasma, Bane, fester, these spells feel like they were added into before SMN was being worked on and the devs just said, "f it, looks good". A lot of what Arcanist does fits Scholar well, but feel wrong for SMN.

[Grimoire-M]

No thanks, the Arcanist toolkit doesn't even fit the SMN job well. It works well for Scholar though. Miasma, Bane, fester, these spells feel like they were added into before SMN was being worked on and the devs just said, "f it, looks good". A lot of what Arcanist does fits Scholar well, but feel wrong for SMN.

Hard disagree. Summoner was designed around Arcanist first and foremost and it shows in how imbalanced Scholar has been historically for being tied down to half of Summoner’s toolkit. Hell the Arcanist instructor literally tells you how to unlock Summoner once you finish the class quest line, not Scholar. And the Summoner questline makes repeated references back to Arcanists and Arcanima while Scholars only acknowledge it once. Scholar the job and scholar the title are also treated vastly differently within the context of XIV’s overall lore, the latter is used to refer to experts in general and is often used interchangeably with other terms while Allagan aetherochemists are called out explicitly multiple times and are directly linked to Summoners in their job lore. Scholar, the job, is mostly contained within itself, and while it is associated with Tacticians aesthetically, Arcanists are also linked to that in general, while Scholars make up a subset of that group historically.

Mechanically speaking Scholar only really cares about Energy Drain and Aetherflow as tools which are easy to rename and functionally replace. Everything else isn’t necessary. I would like Scholar and Summoned to coexist within their Arcanist roots equally but when push comes to shove it’s Summoner that will be tied to it while this game lasts. That’s why their role has remained as DPS since 2.0’s launch and SE has persisted in minimizing Scholar’s connection to Arcanist in the wake of a potential split.

[Cabalabob]

I think pvp SMN exemplifies the problems with it best. It literally has no summons in pvp...

[Exodus-E]

I think pvp SMN exemplifies the problems with it best. It literally has no summons in pvp...

Neither does SCH, for that matter.
It even has the Faerie Gauge and Dissipation there, but they work differently from PvE.

[dezzmont]

Any talk of 'fixing summoner' is going to have a lot of tension between the people who enjoy the current job, which is enjoyable, and the people who don't because it fails to evoke (heh) the very iconic final fantasy job/concept people have a lot of attachment too.

I don't think it is impossible to satisfy both needs, but I think it is important to recognize the second camp is super valid even if they don't play summoner at all right now. It is probably up there with Red Mage in how iconic it is to the game line and the integration of your actual summons into your identity leaves a lot to be desired. And even though Red Mage couldn't actually be a healer/damage hybrid because trinity, they did a good job of heavily integrating its identity as a versatile caster into its kit in a way that satisfies that callback.

But like... the problem is that in most games summons are either 'super spells' or pseudo-limit breaks? Or entirely alter the composition of your party? They are mega-iconic because they mechanically signify something 'bigger' than other mechanics, and that obviously doesn't work in an MMO (at least, without entirely changing summoner to being some absurdly high downtime caster or something, and that already is evoked a bit by how you cycle to getting the 'big' summons, it honestly does feel like your charging up your call meter through the fight, its neat). However, even little touches, like making more of your personal spells summon 'stands' like Dreadwyrm Trance does would do a lot.

Like having every aetherflow ability and major oGCD come with a flashy egi or mini-primal doing a thing for you would be a great way to make your big spells feel like mini summons. Carbuncle could do Fester, Tri-Disaster would be a great way to get our other three ARR primals (No, not you King Mog, maybe you can do addle or something you irritating piece of garbage, we got the tech to make job actions visually different based on how the ranged ones do Peloton) in there. Devotion could have a summon associated with buffing show up above your pet so its not weird that Garuda is giving people damage.

And, of course, Egi glams (and maybe even letting you glam the starting 3 as whatever summon you want) because people identify strongly with summons about as much as they do with pokemon.

Its way less about summoner actually being different and more about it feeling different. Visual feedback is huge in how abilities impact you and how a job feels, which is why despite doing only 150 potency landing a bloodletter feels way more meaty than doing say... a 250 potency cascade on dancer. Its the aethestetic fantasy that is really failing here, not the mechanical one.

[Mimilu]

My thoughts as who is trying to play SMN for the first time:
-While I do like the Egi Assaults (they make the job feel more Pet-class-like), they feel clunky to use to me.
-This is more a lore thing but why is Phoenix the "upgrade" to Bahamut? And why do we have Phoenix in the first place? With what happened in Coil, it seems weird that we're using Phoenix and that it comes after Bahamut.
-Why isn't there a Pet-Glamour Menu yet?

What I would like to see in the future:
-Make the Egi Assaults oGCD abilities you can weave in between your casts.
-I would like more Egi Assault commands. Like I said, they make the job feel more like Pet-class. They don't even need to proc Ruin IV if that would be too broken. I just want more commands for my pet.
-Create a Pet-Glamour Menu (and allow SCH's to glamour their fairies). Then add Egis of the other Primals and other versions of the Primals too (like the Wind-Up minions).
-Instead of Dreadwyrm Trance > Bahamut > Firebird Trance > Phoenix, how about something like: Primal Trance > Summon Primal > Grand Primal Trance > Summon Grand Primal. Summon Primal would summon a Primal version of the Egi/glamour you're currently using that would function like Demi-Bahamut does now and Summon Grand Primal would summon a strong Primal like Bahamut, Phoenix, the Warring Triad, ect that you selected in the Pet-Glamour menu and would function like Demi-Phoenix does now.
-Rename Miasma III to II. SCH doesn't even have the spell anymore, their is no reason for this naming-convention. :B

[Mansion]

What I would like to see in the future:
-Make the Egi Assaults oGCD abilities you can weave in between your casts.

We had that between 5.0 and 5.1 and it was miserable, because your weaving opportunities were so strict that it made it pointlessly complex and punishing. I don't think SMN is a great Weaving-Mage (like RDM is).

[Lilyth]

My thoughts as who is trying to play SMN for the first time:
-While I do like the Egi Assaults (they make the job feel more Pet-class-like), they feel clunky to use to me.

They are a bit clunky, which is just another way of saying you have to wait a little bit before they execute the action, which in most cases is completely fine. The pets are more responsive than ever nowadays, and the delay does align with the "give command/execute order" fantasy.

-This is more a lore thing but why is Phoenix the "upgrade" to Bahamut? And why do we have Phoenix in the first place? With what happened in Coil, it seems weird that we're using Phoenix and that it comes after Bahamut.

Phoenix is not an upgrade to Bahamut, in fact they do the exact same damage. Phoenix is just another "flavor" of demi-summon with a different trance system that works together with Dreadwyrm's. As of why we got Phoenix at all, well... that's not a SMN individual issue. All of the other jobs are gaining new abilities that go completely unexplained by the lore as well and I can only assume that was a deliberate decision taken by the devs.

-Why isn't there a Pet-Glamour Menu yet?

They haven't touched the system at all since its implementation, unfortunately.

What I would like to see in the future:
-Make the Egi Assaults oGCD abilities you can weave in between your casts.

That's how it use to be, and it was not very good. SMN literally did not have enough space to weave so many actions between GCDs and giving so many commands to the pets so fast was making their action queue very convuluted and the actions would get delayed even more. Having Egi assaults as GCDs helped SMN way more and gave it much needed mobility outside trances.

-Rename Miasma III to II. SCH doesn't even have the spell anymore, their is no reason for this naming-convention. :B

Alphinaud uses it. =)

[Rika007]

-Make the Egi Assaults oGCD abilities you can weave in between your casts.

Some of your ideas are interesting but this one would only put Summoner right back into the basically unplayable state it was in between 5.0 and 5.1 Egi Assaults being off the GCD made the entire rotation and absolute horror to use that caused even the most die hard summoner mains in savage raids to drop the class in favor of Black Mage because prolonged play on it was hurting their hands. Summoner does not need less instant GCD's.