Smn Rework Suggestions After LL

[Roda]

I don't need to write an essay to explain my thinking. Poison mage gameplay was bad. The summons which are the core thing about summoner were also bad. There is no need for me to articulate this further. There's nothing vague about it. The class was a broken disjointed mess that was trying to be everything at once, and now they've fixed it by giving it a focus around summon magic. I am thankful that Yoship gave us a summoner that feels like a summoner now.

You can choose to continue debating this issue if you wish, but you will not convince me that 5.0's warlock is better than what I've seen of the summoner we are getting in 6.0.

You don't need to do anything. But if you want to have your posts be taken seriously, then you need to explain yourself instead of stating your feelings as some objective fact and to stop with the name calling of other people who have different opinions than you.
Honestly, that name calling, and your refusal to explain anything from your position (and, honestly your admitted lack of experience playing summoner in content) gives off the impression to me that you don't understand how summoner currently works (or, also an option, you don't understand how warlock works). And if you don't give off the impression of understanding the job, then how can we trust that you know the breaking points it was coming to (dot's weren't it, and it's still coming), or where the gameplay systems clashed with the summoning mechanics (the only problem with the dots were their particle effects and names, other systems were far more in the way of the fantasy, job flow, and progression). My questions are me literally trying to help you help your own argument.

Like, if you want, I can help you in front of a dummy. The rotation isn't hard or clunky (it's not going to be any more streamlined in EW), and honestly the dots take up about as much brainpower as your favorite caster, BLM, probably less so 'cause BLM has reactive procs to deal with and manage.

Personally I'd rather they had embraced actual pet management instead of these fake Egi avatars. The system wasn't that far from being fixed entirely. And current Summoner was the pet job where it felt the most fluid on too due to how pets were woven into the rotation.

Aesthetics aren't always mechanics. Mechanics are, however, Aesthetics. And when it comes to current Summoner, I wanted its Arcanist sub-theme to remain a core part of the role, with the Summoner theme highlighted in Demis. Thus, these pseudo-bardsongs irritate me, not because I think there's a problem with people who hated the DoTs, but because it could easily have been kept around.

To me, SE gave up, plain and simple. Will people it enjoy it? Sure. Will it have as much depth? No. Even Stormblood Summoner had more, and for the WRONG reasons, imo.

Imo they needed to change how they approach(ed) and use(d) demis to fix what was/is coming.

But I am the same mind of you who wanted to be a powerful arcanist who also controlled the power of summoning (like how in previous FFs summoners had a second role). I'm glad that at least not EVERY attack is tied to another entity doing something instead of me.

[Atomos]

I don´t know why ppl still compare this game to other FF titles. It´s an MMORPG and those work way different than solo games, even if FF´s lore is in it´s core. The FF games have evolved and changed their game play over the years too, so...

I was replying to the person who said something about same as older ff smn, just forgot to quote. I know very well it's an mmo and will be different obviously. Although I think they can and should first and foremost keep the base idea and traditions to all the jobs related to the series. And yes ff has changed game play over the years, but summoning has mostly still been the same, only difference is they spend more time on the battlefield for a longer period of time before doing their signature burst moves.

[Videra]

it looks like the easiest job the game has ever had.

Hi, yes, I'm a Scholar main. Hello.

[aveyond-dreams]

I do not need to be a master chef to know when a dish doesn't taste good, and I don't need to be a SMN main for my opinion to count. I levelled the class to 80 in Shb and didn't like it. I gave it a fair chance. The dish has been sent back to the kitchen and a better one is now on its way. Why should I main a class I do not enjoy? I am also confused that you mention name calling? It has been commonplace to compare SMN more to warlock than an actual FF summoner since ARR.

Afflcition Warlock description taken from the main WoW site:
"A master of shadow magic who specializes in drains and damage-over-time spells."

In any case I support the direction the class is going in now and I am optimistic about its future. It will probably become my go to caster for several of my alts, which I'll boost to 80 once the next wave of job skip potions come out. Poison mage will join bow mage, gun mage, rDPS healing limit breaks, 4.0 dark arts spam, bards that can only sing to themselves, and old AST’s useless cards, along with many other bad design choices in the past where it belongs. There is no reason to go into any further depth because it's plain to see for most.

[Atomos]

Lots of things to address here:

- You didn't get more summons that worked like Phoenix. You got avatars that show up and go away after 2 seconds. What you actually got is 3 different phases where you fight as a channeler/geomancer/elementalist, not a summoner

- Let's compare old Bahamut and new Bahamut. Old Bahamut was a burst phase and you could feel the build up to it. In order to maximize DPS you needed to prepare for it and get 4 Ruin IV stacks. Movement was something you had manage, not necessarily because of pet AI (which was only a problem in the last ~5 seconds anyway), but because you would alternate instacasts with hardcasts. You could deal with movement by shuffling around your use of instacasts while still keeping your Wyrmwaves total to 8. You could even have the option to decouple Bahamut from DWT.
New Bahamut: there's no build up, Bahamut is a GCD you use at the start of the fight. It is actually the build up to something minor. Movement? Not an issue, you get to spam the same button over and over again which is of course an instacast, so you could run a marathon if you wanted to. We did get two cool animations in return, though. If you think the new Bahamut is more fun/less boring, then good for you. Sadly, me and other people wouldn't mind to have to use their brain even just a little.

- They kept mobility intact? They took a very mobile caster and made it a phys ranged DPS. SMN was very mobile but its mobility options were tied to DPS, so you still had to manage those (Assaults and Ruin IV). Now, all gone, you are the... Instacast mage, I guess?

- You didn't get functional pets, you get 3 animations. Pretty, but still animations.

What's your point exactly? Because 6.0 smn actually summons six different entities and three different summoning styles in a whole job rotation instead of the lackluster egi's(one of which was never used) and the two time limited elder summons. Aesthetically speaking, this is much more pleasing. We still have carbuncle as an egi, we still have the two limited summons, but instead of more egi's, we now have three satisfying summon animations that deal damage and then changes attacks to three elemental attacks. The end of the day it's up to personal taste, whether it be aesthetically or functionality.

[Atomos]

I do not need to be a master chef to know when a dish doesn't taste good, and I don't need to be a SMN main for my opinion to count. I levelled the class to 80 in Shb and didn't like it. I gave it a fair chance. The dish has been sent back to the kitchen and a better one is now on its way. Why should I main a class I do not enjoy? I am also confused that you mention name calling? It has been commonplace to compare SMN more to warlock than an actual FF summoner since ARR.

Afflcition Warlock description taken from the main WoW site:
"A master of shadow magic who specializes in drains and damage-over-time spells."

In any case I support the direction the class is going in now and I am optimistic about its future. It will probably become my go to caster for several of my alts, which I'll boost to 80 once the next wave of job skip potions come out. Poison mage will join bow mage, gun mage, rDPS healing limit breaks, 4.0 dark arts spam, bards that can only sing to themselves, and old AST’s useless cards, along with many other bad design choices in the past where it belongs. There is no reason to go into any further depth because it's plain to see for most.

Agreed. SMN got super boring quickly when it first came out. The Egi mechanic was annoying and very aesthetically displeasing. HW not much changed, but in SB and ShB it only got slightly more pleasing with Bahamut and Phoenix. And now they are finally focusing on actual summoning instead of being the worst iteration of a summoner in the history of main FF games.

[Cabalabob]

I mean if you want to be pedantic sure, but if they only used JUST Rydia and Yuna's moves that would make for one boring as hell summoner. Of course other things need to be brought into supplement that.

Yes other things need to be brought in to supplement the summon having one big move, the problem is the things they bring in have nothing to do with summoning. In ARR it was arcanist as the “sub job”, in heavensward it was trance turning the summoner into another caster, Stormblood/shadowbringers were my personal favourites because they made it about summoning, the egi became that filler while the demis were the burst, but the job still had arcanist and trance hanging off it from ARR and HW. Now it’s taking a step back and going back to trance style gameplay rather than a step forward going towards more demi-primals.

I mean they probably absolutely could, but to me at least that would very much cheapen the power and rush of bringing out Bahamut and Phoenix. Summoner has always been about having a burst and when you play a burst class you're supposed to be building up to big moments where you unleash your most powerful abilities. Making them like Demi's would just make Summoner feel more like Black Mage, a more steady consistent damage dealer. Which there is nothing wrong with that, but I don't think that was their aim. Plus also there is the whole Bahamut/Phoenix have always been treated as special summons in the Final Fantasy lore, in XIV especially.

Not necessarily, again, even if they just made it so carbuncle was doing the attack it would make a world of difference, especially now that he literally stands there doing nothing. E.G. after you summon gemi Titan to use earthen fury, carbuncle gains an Earth infusion and will cast Earth clap whenever you cast ruin. Same basic principle as what they’re going for but now it’s actually related to summoning.

This is a lot of conjecture here, for many summoner players, trance mage Heavensward and Stormblood Summoner is there favorite iteration of the job (this also brings up one of the biggest issues with any proposed summoner rework, which is that the summoner player base has never been very unified in what it wants), and I don't think I ever saw the dev team come out and say, "Yeah we are having trouble with pets, so here's a whole new mechanic so we hope y'all forget about em." And I don't know how you can say they were moving away from trances, when instead many people were advocating for the Dreadwyrm trance system to get the same treatment as the Firebird Trance system. And It looks like that is what happen.

It’s not conjecture. They talked about it in live letters a couple of times but everything got drowned in talk about egi glams. However back in ARR they didn’t want to buff pets out of fear that it would be too complicated for new players and decided that they wanted to improve summoner by giving power to the summoner rather than adding more egi which were struggling due to various factors.

I also wanted them to give DW trance the firebird treatment, that would be moving away from trance, what they’ve done is not give DW trance the firebird treatment but made both DW and firebird a hybrid of demi and trance. Rather than removing deathflare in favour of having demi Bahamut using ahk morn, they have made it so we use both and then given us some equivalent trance move during firebird.

I agree entirely, aesthetics are extremely important. To me this Summoner has maybe the best aesthetics of any of the jobs out there, and judging by the largely extremely positive reaction most fans are giving it on social media, many feel the same. I'm not saying your dislike of it is invalid, I'm just saying they went another way on the aesthetics, but they definitely in no way ignored them. If anything they put serious work into them.

What they have that is related to summoning is great, I love what they’ve done, the gemi primals look great, their attack animations too. What I don’t love is what is NOT related to summoning, I don’t love the summoner charging into melee range and punching the enemy or casting deathflare. I don’t love carbuncle doing nothing. And it didn’t need to be this way, all of these attacks could have just been merged into moves performed by a summon and I don’t know why I need to explain why that would be more suitable on a job named summoner.

[Tulzscha]

In ARR it was arcanist as the “sub job”, in heavensward it was trance turning the summoner into another caster, Stormblood/shadowbringers were my personal favourites because they made it about summoning

SMN was originally designed with Arcanist in mind, the name "Summoner" didn't come about until after the mechanics of the job were made - Sage was the same. I'm guessing they chose "Summoner" because of the pet. Since then they've made it more of an actual Summoner every xpac which made a big ol' mess lol. Now we have people wanting all manner of different things for the same job and there's no pleasing everyone.

I do think they're going in the right direction, there's just going to be a lot of friction going forward no matter what. Personally I just want a job that has the same management play style as current SMN, idc what it's called. I still think it'd be best to split SMN off Arcanist so it can be its own thing - ideally replacing it with a new dot caster (but that"s just me wanting a dot caster).

[Roda]

I do not need to be a master chef to know when a dish doesn't taste good, and I don't need to be a SMN main for my opinion to count. I levelled the class to 80 in Shb and didn't like it. I gave it a fair chance. The dish has been sent back to the kitchen and a better one is now on its way. Why should I main a class I do not enjoy? I am also confused that you mention name calling? It has been commonplace to compare SMN more to warlock than an actual FF summoner since ARR.

Afflcition Warlock description taken from the main WoW site:
"A master of shadow magic who specializes in drains and damage-over-time spells."

I don't need you to be a master chef, but I do need to know you understand what fish is. Because if someone kept sending a meal that they ordered back to my kitchen, I'd think they have no clue what they actually want.
A single sentence, heard second hand, is literally how the capybara is classified as a fish by the catholic church.

Now I will say the leveling process, especially after all these reworks is AGONIZINGLY BAD at teaching you how to play summoner. It is SO SOOOOOOOO BAD, that it even instills bad casting habits. Especially if you tried it in 5.0 and never touched it again. This is why I offer the training session, 'cause unfortunately the game doesn't provide that for you, and the progression path of summoner doesn't reflect the actual play of level 80 summoner. :T

SMN was originally designed with Arcanist in mind, the name "Summoner" didn't come about until after the mechanics of the job were made - Sage was the same. I'm guessing they chose "Summoner" because of the pet. Since then they've made it more of an actual Summoner every xpac which made a big ol' mess lol. Now we have people wanting all manner of different things for the same job and there's no pleasing everyone.

I do think they're going in the right direction, there's just going to be a lot of friction going forward no matter what. Personally I just want a job that has the same management play style as current SMN, idc what it's called. I still think it'd be best to split SMN off Arcanist so it can be its own thing - ideally replacing it with a new dot caster (but that"s just me wanting a dot caster).

I guarantee you that summoner is the way it is, is because the ps3 couldn't handle full summons. The entire storyline tries to justify not having them... until we do get them, but oops they committed on the visual design so hard in promotional art, class design, and story.

[Karshan]

Lots of things to address here:

- You didn't get more summons that worked like Phoenix. You got avatars that show up and go away after 2 seconds. What you actually got is 3 different phases where you fight as a channeler/geomancer/elementalist, not a summoner

- Let's compare old Bahamut and new Bahamut. Old Bahamut was a burst phase and you could feel the build up to it. In order to maximize DPS you needed to prepare for it and get 4 Ruin IV stacks. Movement was something you had manage, not necessarily because of pet AI (which was only a problem in the last ~5 seconds anyway), but because you would alternate instacasts with hardcasts. You could deal with movement by shuffling around your use of instacasts while still keeping your Wyrmwaves total to 8. You could even have the option to decouple Bahamut from DWT.
New Bahamut: there's no build up, Bahamut is a GCD you use at the start of the fight. It is actually the build up to something minor. Movement? Not an issue, you get to spam the same button over and over again which is of course an instacast, so you could run a marathon if you wanted to. We did get two cool animations in return, though. If you think the new Bahamut is more fun/less boring, then good for you. Sadly, me and other people wouldn't mind to have to use their brain even just a little.

- They kept mobility intact? They took a very mobile caster and made it a phys ranged DPS. SMN was very mobile but its mobility options were tied to DPS, so you still had to manage those (Assaults and Ruin IV). Now, all gone, you are the... Instacast mage, I guess?

- You didn't get functional pets, you get 3 animations. Pretty, but still animations.

And animations are all they were until FFX. Garuda coming, doing an attack and immediately leaving, is EXACTLY what I always wanted and thought I get before starting ARR, and got a pet / dot class instead.
I got used to it but class fantasy was really wanting. Now ? I don't care that I'm a geomancer for the 15 seconds after : the summons finally behave the way A LOT of people like them, which is the pre-FF10 way.
Demis are more like most recent FF.

So I can play current SMN in full rotation and find it ok, but the class fantasy isn't there. The new iteration is clearly dumbed down rotation wise (there is still one or 2 subtleties on some transitions, I tried checking a preliminary rotation) but class fantasy has shown its nose for the very first time. I would have been ok keeping the old one but now that I saw the new I'm really reaaallllyyy excited and want them to develop further that road now, with Alexander, Ramuh, Shiva....

The only gripe I have with the rework (I'm not 100% selfish, only 70%), is that they did not provide a pet / dot class at the same time. So for people who didn't play or love FF and their summoners until 9 and thus preferred the warlock / pet aspect of XiV smn, they got robbed of this kind of gameplay without a trade off. And will have to wait 2 years for the (very probable) next caster DPS in hope it embarks those "tactical" aspects.

I feel a lot of heat and pages would have been avoided just for one word : if the current iteration would have kept the name arcanist (without the demis), and the one coming presented as something new, a summoner, everybody would be more relaxed. Like someone mentioned, they attached the word summoner when gameplat wise they were not ready for it, and for 8 years it's been called that and so many people don't understand why we were upset of this "initial ill branding" that's getting rectified. And by rectified I don't mean superior gameplay but "adequate to classic FF name" gameplay.

Now they need to design a real pet / dot class as well. It's a shame they are only gonna do it in 2 years (with a chance of not happening), they should have done it here to split in 2 the functionnalities.