Fix Summoner Once and For All in 6.0 Please!

[Grimoire-M]

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.

It's a case of flavor that the current Lore already justifies to some extent. We are able to access Dreadwyrm Trance and later Demi-Bahamut because of the Calamity scattering Bahamut's Aether all over Eorzea. Phoenix was a Primal that was present during the Calamity, whose Aether was also scattered in a similar manner, though Coil goes into detail how exactly that all worked out. Ergo, since the two are linked, it follows that we have the potential to summon a Demi-Primal version of Phoenix. The Light-suffused Aether of the First just helped us pull that off, somehow, and we get -zero- relevant explanation on that part, but that's the gist. Also, notably, Firebird Trance does deal more damage than Dreadwyrm Trance. By 400 potency or so on single target. I think it's technically less on AoE, but basically the GCD bonus damage given to us from Fountain of Fire/Brand of Purgatory is worth roughly twice that of Deathflare initially and the falloff, while there, isn't a big deal compared to using Phoenix itself.

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.

Paradoxically I did better on 5.0-5.1 Summoner iteration that had oGCD Egi Assaults because it did encourage you to spend them properly. Because they couldn't 'fit' anywhere past the opener you just dumped them as soon as you could in said opener then stockpiled them before you could use them for Bahamut. I actually kind of miss that aspect to Summoner, but it's the kind of thing I'm not married to. I agree the current iteration is better but if I was to improve on it I would make Ruin IV into a Bahamut-specific spell or split Ruin IV into a separate button again, but ideally I'd rework Further Ruin's interaction with Egi Assaults and replace it with another system that has more room to be expanded on. It's fine that they're mobility buttons, but it would be nice if they built towards a non-Trance payoff as well.

[Lilyth]

It's a case of flavor that the current Lore already justifies to some extent. We are able to access Dreadwyrm Trance and later Demi-Bahamut because of the Calamity scattering Bahamut's Aether all over Eorzea. Phoenix was a Primal that was present during the Calamity, whose Aether was also scattered in a similar manner, though Coil goes into detail how exactly that all worked out. Ergo, since the two are linked, it follows that we have the potential to summon a Demi-Primal version of Phoenix. The Light-suffused Aether of the First just helped us pull that off, somehow, and we get -zero- relevant explanation on that part, but that's the gist. Also, notably, Firebird Trance does deal more damage than Dreadwyrm Trance. By 400 potency or so on single target. I think it's technically less on AoE, but basically the GCD bonus damage given to us from Fountain of Fire/Brand of Purgatory is worth roughly twice that of Deathflare initially and the falloff, while there, isn't a big deal compared to using Phoenix itself.

I like that aspect of how we moved from Dreadwyrm's Trance to Bahamut to eventually Phoenix. In fact I really enjoy how things are now to the point I hope 6.0 doesn't add a new Demi-summon out of nowhere and instead expand on the two we currently have.

On the Bahamut vs Phoenix subject, I was mostly referring to the Demi-summons themselves, which do share the same damaging main actions (Ekindle and Wyrmwaves/Scarlet Flames.
But if we do want to get technical about it, the entire Bahamut phase and Phoenix phase still do the same damage on an ideal rotation if you consider the 4 Further Ruin stacks you need to use to get the max value out of Bahamut. Granted, you could look at it in an absolute vacuum and say Firebird trance gives you an extra 400 potency since Further Ruin is not inherently a product of Dreadwyrm trance. But in an actual run if you look at your DPS spike in burst phases with proper buff alignment, both Demi-summon phases will have the exact same potency output. Personally I think that's a more elegant way to look at it.

[GavynG]

I still want the rest of the Egi's already. It's been how long now?

I don't even care what size they are. I just want Square to "get it" already.

[AC9Breaker]

I thought this was an April 1st thread, but then I saw OP wrote this in February. yikes.jpeg

[GavynG]

Square will just sweep the issue under the rug if we don't keep talking about it.

[Exodus-E]

I still want the rest of the Egi's already. It's been how long now?

I don't even care what size they are. I just want Square to "get it" already.

Promised/assured us we'd get more in Patch 2.2's Live Letter (back in 2014).
Instead, we got an Egi glamour "system" (using archaic/unintuitive text commands) that only allowed us to revert them to Carbuncles in Patch 3.5 (back in 2017).
So between 4~7 years, give or take.

And agreed, it's about damn time they say/do something about it.

Square will just sweep the issue under the rug if we don't keep talking about it.

Here's hoping it gets finally addressed on the upcoming digital FanFest.
Either as part of Endwalker's features or through its Q&A segment.

[Colt47]

Summoner / Scholar should work more like Final Fantasy Tactics, not FFXI. I'd be for the FFXI model in the next MMO following this game, but the way they are moving now they totally want to get rid of pets and I'd like to just be able to store up energy for haymakers and summon a real ifrit or Garuda for one big attack. The way I'd have preferred summoner work in this game is more like Shadow Hearts harmonixer, where you fuse with the summon into an alternative form.

They could build an entire game off of just Summoner, Beast Master, and Blue Mage. All three of those jobs can do absolutely everything and they just have to get access to the right thing. Beast Master = Warrior with a type of mythical beast pet, Summoner = Mixed Caster that seeks out spirits and gods to summon, and Blue Mage = Warrior / Mage that seeks out bigger and better powers as he travels the lands.

[Jirah]

Be careful what u wish for because fixing a job may also mean "make it dummer"

Still stand by this

[Zfz]

I wouldn't mind if each eggi replaces the most of the SMN spells and provides a different "playstyle", with each eggi having a dps rotation befitting its role.

For example, on a single target fight you would summon Ifrit and instead of Ruin/Bio/Miasma/Energy Drain+Fester/etc., these all get replaced with Ifrit's melee skills, with a single target melee combo, a dot, and maybe a simplistic AOE combo. Then if you summon Garuda, you get ranged AOE comboes.

This shouldn't be that hard to balance because Ifrit could have terrible AOE potential (maybe on par with tanks) while Garuda could have terrible single target potential (again on par with tanks). Titan would have 0 damage potential. It would be the same as balancing any other DPS job because every DPS job would have to go through both single-target and AOE balance passes anyways.

From here on, there could be more eggis that would provide different rotations. For example the Ifrit rotation could be WAR-like, while another melee eggi would be NIN-like, another SAM-like, etc. The SMN can only "equip" 3 eggis at the same time.

The current iteration of the SMN doesn't really feel like a "pet job".

[Pyitoechito]

The current iteration of the SMN doesn't really feel like a "pet job".

What defines a pet job, anyway? Is it having to rely on delay when commanding pets to perform (especially if you happen to move)? Wonky AI that ghosts actions? Pets executing random commands on their own like in XI?

True pet jobs are just too clunky to actually work in a fast-paced game like XIV. Does anyone remember when Selene had a single-target silence spell? Remember how good it was, trying to get your pet to execute a targeted silence skill while the target was still casting (hoping to god Selene wasn't in the middle of an Embrace)? Answer: it sucked big time. Pet jobs work in XI because being clunky and slow was the norm there.