New Summoner looks really nice, but...

[Jirah]

Glad the job finally nailed the aesthetic…but now it suffers from being incredibly shallow which judging by DNC and MCH appeal they will never fix as people really love playing jobs you can watch Netflix along with.

It’ll inevitably stagnate in 7.0 due to lack of feedback and I’m not onboard with yet another afk job. Which only leaves BLM as the only job with some nuisance what isn’t automatic, or just bare bones. Unsure how reaper will play but so far the devs just don’t know how to make any good ranged jobs now

[aveyond-dreams]

Glad the job finally nailed the aesthetic…but now it suffers from being incredibly shallow which judging by DNC and MCH appeal they will never fix as people really love playing jobs you can watch Netflix along with.

It’ll inevitably stagnate in 7.0 due to lack of feedback and I’m not onboard with yet another afk job. Which only leaves BLM as the only job with some nuisance what isn’t automatic, or just bare bones. Unsure how reaper will play but so far the devs just don’t know how to make any good ranged jobs now

Dancer and current Machinist are some of the more fun classes in game. 80/20 rule. If reworking these classes to be palatable to most people means the loss of the old mains who for whatever reason were highly attached to the outdated design, so be it. For every old main lost the job gains 10 new ones, with a lot of them being players who otherwise wouldn't have touched the job before because it was in such a weird place compared to the others in game. Old machinist and summoner were at constant war with themselves in terms of gameplay mechanics and class fantasy, until they reached the absolute breaking point where the devs got together and collectively went, "Yeah, there's no way we can do this anymore."

The most logical progression for summoner in 7.0 would be to obtain new primals to summon whether they be in the form of demis, one-off attacks like Ifrit/Garuda/Titan, or one offs that eventually come to replace Fester and Painflare. I do not consider 6.0 summoner an afk job by any means but if I have to choose that between the "nuance" of dot management and pets that don't do what you tell them to do, then me and the majority of the playerbase will choose the job that is simply more fun. I have always found Black Mage far easier to play than 5.0 summoner, because the class has consistently good flow to it instead of being...a mess.

The reality is that summoner was stagnant for far longer than it should have been because they kept doubling down on the dot portion and leaving the summons for last. There is no good reason why their capstone ability in Heavensward was Dreadwyrm Trance instead of a summon. Bahamut in Stormblood took forever to build up to and the same could be said for Pheonix in Shadowbringers, with nothing but egis and dots in between. This makes machinist's old overheating mechanic look better by comparison, a truly astonishing feat.

"Carpal tunnel" and "warlock" summoner will not be missed.

[Riyshn]

For the first time since SB I am loving the look for the summoner. I am, like others, confused why aetherflow stacks remained a thing. Doesn’t seem to fit now. The class looks spicy now though.

It's to give us something else to do, basically. If Aetherflow didn't exist, then the only thing the job would have going is managing summon timers. Aetherflow isn't much, but it does add a bit to break that up.

It also (mostly) makes sense thematically as well. This NewSMN is all about channeling aspected aether from primals to empower Carbuncle for a big attack, then using the leftover aether from that for variously flavored short bursts. Pulling aether from "that guy right in front of me" (Energy Drain/Siphon) and throwing it back in the form of Fester/Painflare/Ruin4 is pretty on theme. Fester just needs a reskin to fit better with the rest of the kit (It made sense when it was detonating disease-themed DoTs, but not so much anymore.), and Energy Drain/Siphon could use animation adjustments to emphasize the energy return, rather than the outgoing projectile.

[Jirah]

Dancer and current Machinist are some of the more fun classes in game..

DNC most of the time is 1-2 MCH most of the time after it’s spastic pressing of random buttons is 1-2-: popular yea, fun subjective well designed? Perfectly arguable.

But seeing how so little talk about the kit and just talk about the visuals, I’m aware what camp the community is in as a whole. Pretty particles first, Job second. Which is why all the most popular jobs are essentially automatic or have very very low involvement. Shout out to All of DNC skills being forceably tied to their buffs as the devs are so scared of them having free will

[Pallero]

I think the rotation is going to be fairly simple, but more complex than people think. 7.0 will build on this new base that they’ve built

The true hype of MMOs: waiting for that future patch where the game is finally gonna get good.

Next expansion you'll get one GCD and four visual upgrades again.
Devs have set their minds on the most financially profitable way forward where both classes and encounters are tuned for the casual facerolling monkeys, then hire streamers to market the game for the said monkeys.

[aveyond-dreams]

I think this post which has been making the rounds on twitter after someone fished it up from the depths of tumblr encapsulates the current situation quite nicely. I wasn't originally going to post it, until the above posts went on to prove pretty much what it was saying. Edited for the sake of the original poster's privacy and to remove any "enthusiastic" language while still getting their point across.



In other words, I am sorry that you were so heavily invested in these jobs that were despised by the majority of the community. Your perspective is heavily biased in favor of what many considered to be needlessly complicated gameplay mechanics. Of course new summoner "feels like a walking simulator" by comparison because you were playing the equivalent of a NASA space calculator supercomputer while everyone else was having fun with more normal jobs.

Wanting jobs that don't hurt my hands to play and that have visual payoff in the form of actual summon magic does not mean one is incompetent. I have to laugh when you bring up 5.0 tanks, which are the best they've ever been in comparison to the days of tank stance dancing and Paladin's Flash spell. These changes were ultimately for the better and allowed many people to have a lot more fun playing tank classes, myself included.

In the end, what's done is done and the game will be better off for it. Me and every other 6.0 summoner will look back on the job's past and laugh it off, I can only hope by then you will have mellowed out.

[Duskane]

DNC most of the time is 1-2 MCH most of the time after it’s spastic pressing of random buttons is 1-2-: popular yea, fun subjective well designed? Perfectly arguable.

But seeing how so little talk about the kit and just talk about the visuals, I’m aware what camp the community is in as a whole. Pretty particles first, Job second. Which is why all the most popular jobs are essentially automatic or have very very low involvement. Shout out to All of DNC skills being forceably tied to their buffs as the devs are so scared of them having free will

the range role in general is very simple and this is fine
it seems you enjoy bard which 95% of the fight is 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-3 and click what flashes reroll dots under buffs and bam thats bard

which well to a lot of people pressing 1 all the time isn't very interesting why MCH going 1,2,3 then heat blast 1,1,1,1,1 would be much more exciting than BRD same goes for DNC while you 1-2 a lot you also 3,4,5,6 a lot

as you said fun is subjective and honestly id rather play a healer over BRD
so there isnt much need in bashing DNC and MCH so much when BRD has even more flaws than the other range

[CKNovel]

Dancer and current Machinist are some of the more fun classes in game. 80/20 rule.

Fun is subjective.
Everytime I see someone say "MCH is fun" they don't raid or even try Extreme content.
During ShB the first month was fun because it was the discovery.
Can you compare the experience of a player who played 20h of MCH compared to another who played 200h?

Stormblood was a bad iteration but you always had that rush of dopamine from executing the Wildfire combo.
Today I get that from the No Mercy window on GNB, it's not the most complex job but it's fun at every level.
Now Wildfire feels like huh... It feels like reassemble but without the big Drill behind.

Raider should be allowed to have fun with their favorite jobs too.

[aveyond-dreams]

Everytime I see someone say "MCH is fun" they don't raid or even try Extreme content.

Rich Campbell just cleared two ultimates on stream as MCH and had a lot of fun doing so. He is now going to attempt TEA as MCH. He started off as SMN and then eventually got turned off from the class just before starting ultimate prog. Gee, I wonder why. As for myself, I mostly stuck with Dancer and Red Mage while clearing extremes this expansion because the job design allows me to focus more on what's actually going on in the environment as opposed to fiddling with keys all over the place.

Moving forward I will probably start clearing extremes in 6.0 as SMN, because the job no longer suffers from the issues it had in the past.

This may come as a shock to raiders but if a game is continuously built around a minority within the playerbase you will gradually reduce your playerbase to just that one minority because everyone else will inevitably move on to greener pastures. See: WoW. A job shouldn't be fun for only raiders, it should be fun for most group content provided you're playing at a decent enough skill level. Even then, its clear that even ultimate raiders were not having fun with the old job designs so far more is gained from these changes than lost.

[Sunako]

I personally think summoner will be harder to play than it is now.

Why?

Because you can choose how you use your summons between your bahamut/phoenix phases.

You need adjust your summons based what you need.
- Some phases need more aoe
- Some phases need more instant casts for mechanics
- some phases need more burst

- For garuda the boss need to be stationary for the dot
- Ifrit phase have long cast times
- Titan have a lot of instant cast, it might be good for movement phase