Fix Summoner Once and For All in 6.0 Please!

[MagiusNecros]

Summoner feels like Summoner during Bahamut and Phoenix. Blue Mage has usable summon attacks at the press of the button that makes Summoners jealous. Whipping out Ramuh's staff is the most hype crap you'll ever see.

[ReynTime]

Could be a rework(/pruning) of abilities.

Although personally I would prefer if they more leaned into older interpretations of what made a summoner than an actual pet class. That being: The summoner calls forth their summon. Their summon does a signature attack. The summon then leaves.

To give an idea of how this could be feasible in 14, imagine blue mage for a moment. Imagine as the blue mage imitates the physical motion of titan's mountain buster as though they were flipping a table, they also briefly called forth a semi-transparent form of titan who is also performing the same physical motion. After the animation ends, the 'phantom' titan leaves.

The only problem with blue mage is actually needing to go out and hunt for each individual spell. But if you had a job with a fixed set of abilities learned at a fixed levels, and implementing the aformentioned 'phantom' to go with the abilities, I think it would be closer to what the summoner fantasy is.

What if the summon didn't disappear immediately, and instead lasted for long enough for you to do 2 or 3 actions while it does its thing before disappearing?

[ItMe]

Honestly, I'm humbled the devs have taking my ideas and put them in the game.

How do you know what the changes are, let alone where SQEX got the ideas from?

[MagiusNecros]

How do you know what the changes are, let alone where SQEX got the ideas from?

Are you implying you know what the actual changes are? Time to spill the beans popoto!!

[ItMe]

Are you implying you know what the actual changes are? Time to spill the beans popoto!!

No, but the person I was quoting seems to and I'm confused.

[Grimoire-M]

Honestly I don't even mind Summoner where it is right now. Aesthetically I think they've nailed it, and it doesn't need any major changes for 6.0. Blue Mage just looks like a better polished mess to me comparatively speaking, and that's simply what I expect out of that job.


However when it comes to Summoner's mechanics, I'm torn. Everyone wants pet AI to change, that's frankly a given, and my interpretation of the interview is that's likely what is getting re-tuned. I'm hoping they don't revert to any prior iteration of pets as what we currently have is the most consistent it's ever been but I acknowledge that it has variable delay, so they should focus on tuning up the consistency of what is there now across all ping levels, and ideally make the next version's mechanics scalable to future expansions. I think the flow of the current rotation works apart from some minor hiccups. Egi aren't engaging, but they make Demi-Egi feel distinct. Demi are frustrating and Bahamut in particular feels lackluster, but they make me appreciate what Egi get right, and I don't think Bahamut needs much of a push to be made more fun.


Where I want their focus to go is mostly on merging and trimming actions that are already context sensitive and similar, which necessitates that they alter the overall structure of Summoner's levelling curve to make better use of what they have now. The only major hope I have is that they bring back Aetherflow to Arcanist. I don't want anything else from pre-Shadowbringers Summoner, though if they wanted to they could bring back Spur if they wanted to give us Trance in ARR. The only reason I want Aetherflow is so it can fill the role that Trance and Energy Drain/Siphon currently do: act as a bridge in the rotation and grant us resources (Aetherflow Stacks, Trance access, ideally Enkindle/Deathflare resources as well with this overhaul) that we can use for our Demi-Burst phase. That is essentially what it did in those prior expansions to begin with. As long as they don't try to jam in Aethertrail or lockout nonsense with it I think the job would be fine with no major changes to the Heavensward through Shadowbringers part of its progression curve, though under the hood many of those actions would no longer be assigned to a hotbar.


The obvious merges are Enkindle with Deathflare and Enkindle Bahamut/Phoenix, plus Dreadwyrm Trance and Summon Bahamut. For trims retooling Energy Drain/Siphon as ARR-only versions of Fester/Painflare works perfectly. Ideally Egi Assault and Fester would be made into Summoner-exclusive actions. Given how Scholars miss Bane I think moving it and Ruin II down to pre-30 Summoner while moving Egi Assault and Fester up is fair, since they could then get a Scholar-exclusive version of Bane when they unlock Scholar without it feeling too weird (imo it would upgrade into Deployment Tactics, which would retain the Bane effect when used on enemies. It would balance out a longer cooldown with less damage falloff as well spread Chain Stratagem). That would eliminate some confusion during that section of the job change, and would allow Scholar to get Energy Drain and Aetherflow at low levels again.


As for what I'd like to see for Egi abilities? Probably move Titan Shield to a personal defensive cooldown and give Titan Egi another attack. I honestly miss it being an oGCD, and I don't think it's too much of an issue to add it at a 120s cooldown ala Manaward, or to give Garuda/Ifrit animations (Hell they could reuse the old Contagion/Radiant Shield particles with some tweaking). If not that, then maybe some kind of teleportation ability that doubles as a way to get the Egi to charge in to the boss. Basically we'd dash to our pet's current position, then either throw it or have it swoop to the center of the boss. It'd probably be an instant-cast GCD just to make it as consistent as the Egi Assaults.


Any other theoretical Egi suggestions depend on what they do to fix Enkindle with the merger. Ideally they'd shorten the cooldown to 5s so it can be shared across Bahamut/Phoenix. It doesn't affect Deathflare at all, but something else would have to fill in how we access it with Egi, or Summoner could get Trance and it in ARR with Spur (the most boring but effective option).


Demi-wise make Bahamut distinct from Phoenix by giving it a trait that enhances Fester/Painflare and gives them new animations. I'd like to see us have actual Akh Morn spam and I'm okay reusing or retuning assets to give us that. I would expect us to get more Demis in the future, but it can wait till 7.0 if they follow through properly on upgrading pet AI and making Egi into engaging filler for 6.0.


Oh, and please give Tri-Disaster charges and a lower cooldown instead of the reset mechanic and make us cast Devotion on our Egi or Demi instead of ordering our Egi to cast it and getting screwed in the Demi window. No other nonsense required. Those abilities will work better if they're completely isolated from interacting with the rest of Summoner's toolkit.

[Raikai]

Mr. Happy put out a video with a brief interview with YoshiP and the topic of Egi glam was asked.

Naoki Yoshida:
Currently summoner as a job is reaching somewhat of a breaking point when it comes to the overall play mechanics, so we’ve halted work on Egi glamour for the time being in order to shift focus. There is a reason behind this, but we can’t share the details with you at the moment. When the time comes, I’ll be sure to properly share that information with everyone.

I mean... I've been saying this (and got flamed for it) for quite a while now, that they didn't shed any news on the topic like an ETA because they are reworking - heavily - SMN, and implementing a glamour system would be wasted work if 1 expansion later everything changed.

This statement near-confirms this. Not saying that Egis are going to be removed altogether, but I really suspect the way they function will be nothing like they do nowadays..

[Grimoire-M]

Mr. Happy put out a video with a brief interview with YoshiP and the topic of Egi glam was asked.

Naoki Yoshida:
Currently summoner as a job is reaching somewhat of a breaking point when it comes to the overall play mechanics, so we’ve halted work on Egi glamour for the time being in order to shift focus. There is a reason behind this, but we can’t share the details with you at the moment. When the time comes, I’ll be sure to properly share that information with everyone.

I mean... I've been saying this (and got flamed for it) for quite a while now, that they didn't shed any news on the topic like an ETA because they are reworking - heavily - SMN, and implementing a glamour system would be wasted work if 1 expansion later everything changed.

This statement near-confirms this. Not saying that Egis are going to be removed altogether, but I really suspect the way they function will be nothing like they do nowadays..

That was my interpretation as well. I doubt it's going to change much aesthetically, at least if they're properly retooling things under the hood to improve responsiveness. I wouldn't be surprised if they made pets client-side.

[Dyvid]

No, but the person I was quoting seems to and I'm confused.

I'm referring to suggestions and ideas I've posted in the past that have made it in game, you're welcome to search my name but be warned it goes back 10 years. I have no clue what they are playing and that is what has me worried. I know Egi design is a hot button because I've seen it posted over and over and over for the past 8 years.

Mr. Happy put out a video with a brief interview with YoshiP and the topic of Egi glam was asked.

Naoki Yoshida:
Currently summoner as a job is reaching somewhat of a breaking point when it comes to the overall play mechanics, so we’ve halted work on Egi glamour for the time being in order to shift focus. There is a reason behind this, but we can’t share the details with you at the moment. When the time comes, I’ll be sure to properly share that information with everyone.

I mean... I've been saying this (and got flamed for it) for quite a while now, that they didn't shed any news on the topic like an ETA because they are reworking - heavily - SMN, and implementing a glamour system would be wasted work if 1 expansion later everything changed.

This statement near-confirms this. Not saying that Egis are going to be removed altogether, but I really suspect the way they function will be nothing like they do nowadays..

I read this differently I guess. I'm taking it as they have too many "systems" on SMN that just didn't work in 5.0 like they hoped and I agree with that. You have Trance, Demi, Egi, DoT, Aetherflow... It was just too much to try and keeping piling one of top of the other which is what they tried to do. I don't think it was too much though, just not revamped to work well with each other. But's I'll say that if you remove pets from a pet job, the forums will erupt with very negative feedback.

[Mykll]

I don't see SE giving us back proper pets. And probably will be further removed somehow. I wouldn't be surprised if the pet spells turned into bard songs, where for 15 seconds you go Ifrit mode and a couple of spells does something or procs something different. That fades and you go Titan for 15. And on and on. So SMN is probably forever dead to me, and only levels up because it is tied to SCH.