Summoner 6.0 Rework (my reimagining)

[Burningskull]

What if they just turned SMN back into a full time DoT mage and made your summons work like the MCH pet? Then you could just rotate through them while keeping up your DoTs? You could even put Ifrit and Garuda on the same timer, just use one for single target and one for AoE. Use them to accumulate charges so you can summon Bahamut. Then add Ramuh and Shiva to let you get more charges quickly but do the same thing, then add Pheonix as a AoE version to Bahamut.

[Burningskull]

Going to post this here. Had an idea while doing a lvl 50 alliance raid. By no means am I a developer of games so bare with me. Tried to rework SMN while still keeping some of what we already have.

First the Ruin and DoT aspects.

1. Ruin spells would change. Ruin would grant you Ruin II. Ruin II would have a 50% chance to turn Ruin into Ruin III, and Ruin III would grant Ruin IV.
2. Bio and Miasma would work the same. I think when you get Bio II they should also upgrade Miasma into Miasma II.
3. Keep Bane how it is.
4. Make Fester and Painflare share a CD, maybe learned at the same time, and be on a 30s or 60s CD, but no longer need Aetherflow stacks. Maybe keep the 2 charge system.
5. Outburst can be kept.
6. Make Tri-Disaster work like BRDs Iron Jaws where it just resets both your DoTs and is on the GCD instead of having it's own CD.
7. Energy Drain / Siphon removed.

Now the Summons

1 Egi Assault I and II removed. Enkindle, Enkindle Bahamut, and Enkindle Pheonix removed.
2. Summon I now only summons Carbuncle for an oGCD attack.
3. Summon II now only summons Ifrit, which now works like MCH's Queen pet for single target damage. It does it's own rotation, and at the end does a big attack that now grants Aetherflow. It has a CD that is shared with Summon IV.
4. Summon III now only summons Titan for an oGCD attack.
5. Summon IV now only summons Garuda, which now works like MCH's Queen pet for AoE damage. It does it's own rotation, and at the end does a big attack that now grants Aetherflow. It has a CD that is shared with Summon II.
6. Dreadwyrm Trance merged with Summon Bahamut to become Bahamut Trance which takes 2 Aetherflow charges. Bahamut does his own rotation and ends with a big attack. While summoned your Ruin and Outburst spells change to new spells. At the end Dreadwyrm Trance becomes Pheonix Trance
7. Pheonix Trance would work just like Bahamut Trance. It now takes 2 Aetherflow charges and Pheonix does it's own rotation ending with a big attack. Would still change your Ruin and Outburst spells to new spells. At the end it becomes Bahamut Trance again.

I think this would allow for the Devs to Upgrade the summons into new summons, or add more Demi summons since they would work basically the same and just be new and flashy.

[Grimoire-M]

Fully agree.

...Now if only there were more threads starting from more or less brass-tack details by which to make Egis not objectively terrible instead of beginning from requests to burn SMN to the ground (or literally remove it as a job)...

To be fair whenever I try to dump all the info needed to get people to that point while advocating that I actually -like- Summoner’s current lore, aesthetics, and rotational structure it tends to kill those threads. I’m assuming it’s because I ramble and get hostile at the same people who can’t take some time to look at why they’re not getting the SNES/PSX summoner mechanics and they just quietly shuffle off the forum till the next one comes along to echo the same complaints that have been there since ARR.

I really should just make the damned topic already.

[Shurrikhan]

I really should just make the damned topic already.

Please do. You can count on at least one patient reader, even if some further explanation may be required here or there.

[Semirhage]

To be fair whenever I try to dump all the info needed to get people to that point while advocating that I actually -like- Summoner’s current lore, aesthetics, and rotational structure it tends to kill those threads. I’m assuming it’s because I ramble and get hostile at the same people who can’t take some time to look at why they’re not getting the SNES/PSX summoner mechanics and they just quietly shuffle off the forum till the next one comes along to echo the same complaints that have been there since ARR.

I really should just make the damned topic already.

Whatever it is it can't be any more confusing or infuriating than those weird general discussion threads demanding that summoners be 10x more powerful than all the other jobs because summoning is "stronger in lore" or whatever. I remember those.

[ItMe]

What if they just turned SMN back into a full time DoT mage and made your summons work like the MCH pet? Then you could just rotate through them while keeping up your DoTs? You could even put Ifrit and Garuda on the same timer, just use one for single target and one for AoE. Use them to accumulate charges so you can summon Bahamut. Then add Ramuh and Shiva to let you get more charges quickly but do the same thing, then add Pheonix as a AoE version to Bahamut.

You know... when I picked up FF14 I started as Arcanist because I thought they would work that way.
Set and forget just like MCH's turrets or Fray. I'd summon something and once on the field it would just wreck havoc like an independent entity.

Personally I'd be interested in seeing our summons be more in line with my initial expectations, though as I've played more I've come to understand that managing the pet is (was?) one of the unique and fun things about the job.
Instead of changing SMN to be something it's not, it would probably work better if some of these creative juices went towards jobs that already have the set and forget abilities.

[ChazNatlo]

No, I think we have the same stance here.
/fistbump?

Sure. /Fistbump.

Unrelated:

Honestly, my completely unreasonable answer to the Egi problem is to integrate it further into the Summoner's kit and system.

Take their "Egis cannot be hurt, and functionally don't exist on the map" thing a step further and eliminate them entirely as their own entity. Add them to the Summoner's skeleton and animations, hovering over our shoulder (Or down by our heel, for Carbuncle) while we do things. When we use an Egi assault, they do their animation as part of the Summoner's animation, with Ifrit and Titan dashing out and retreating back to our shoulder as part of the attack animation (or just teleporting, since that would limit animation lock.)

Their autos can become our autos (Though this would require either giving Titan and Ifrit range, or the Summoner entering melee range to get the most out of them, so I can see the problem here) or whatever to make up for the loss of DPS that would otherwise occur.

I say it is unreasonable because fusing the animations together like this would be like making animations for a whole new class (I think, I'm not an animator), so it's a bit much to expect from them.

Edit: I'd also be interested in seeing them replace the job actions with more Egi actions, so the egi is even more significant to our combat style, even if it's just a cosmetic change, but I'm probably being greedy.

[Beddict]

Their autos can become our autos (Though this would require either giving Titan and Ifrit range, or the Summoner entering melee range to get the most out of them, so I can see the problem here) or whatever to make up for the loss of DPS that would otherwise occur.

The thought of Titan-Egi just lobbing boulders at people from a distance while squeaking "BOW DOWN, OVERDWELLER" in the SMN's ear is the reason why this should be a thing tbh. Just steal one of the three stones from WHM's Stone I, shrink it down to a more appropriate size, and make it glow yellow. Congrats, flying glowing boulders. For Ifrit-Egi, steal Sonic Boom off of BLU, shrink it down to an appropriate size, and make it glow red rather than purple. Now it's like...flying claw attacks at the enemy. It's hella cheap to reuse animations like that between Jobs but I don't think most people would notice immediately, and even then who cares, SE reuses animations all the time. Look at how they removed fancy stuff like Shadowskin and gave DRK Rampart instead, or removing Leeches to give SCH Esuna. Borrow stuff from WHM and BLU, tweak the animation to make it more appropriate, and most people won't notice unless they look super closely.

[ItMe]

Take their "Egis cannot be hurt, and functionally don't exist on the map" thing a step further and eliminate them entirely as their own entity. Add them to the Summoner's skeleton and animations, hovering over our shoulder (Or down by our heel, for Carbuncle) while we do things. When we use an Egi assault, they do their animation as part of the Summoner's animation, with Ifrit and Titan dashing out and retreating back to our shoulder as part of the attack animation (or just teleporting, since that would limit animation lock.)

Their autos can become our autos (Though this would require either giving Titan and Ifrit range, or the Summoner entering melee range to get the most out of them, so I can see the problem here) or whatever to make up for the loss of DPS that would otherwise occur.

So it would kinda be like a Stand?
I can get behind that~
If more of our attacks felt like they were coming from our egi they wouldn't feel so out of place to me.
This is a neat idea.

Though... do SMN have ranged auto attacks?

[ChazNatlo]

They do not. But the pets have autos, (technically I think they're actually using a skill on a short cooldown, but they function as the egi's autos.) If they added the pet to the Summoner as part of the model, it wouldn't be able to do it's own thing, and thus it wouldn't have those regular attacks, and thus if everything else was the same, my idea would create a noticeable drop in DPS. The obvious answer is either give the Summoner a ranged auto based on the Pet, or raise the potencies to make up for the DPS loss (or ignore it and hope nobody notices.) Of the two options, one integrates the Egi into the Summoner's kit, the other basically makes it a second minion with occasional skill uses.

I remember once upon a time people theory crafting having the Summoner stand in melee so they'd get a damage bonus from the book slaps.