Summoner is a Final Fantasy 14 summoner (not a warlock wow clone)

[aveyond-dreams]

I've lost a lot of excitement for Endwalker because of this.

And hundreds of thousands of people more are looking forward to a Summoner that doesn't hurt people's hands to play and that actually focuses on summon magic after 8 years of waiting. The abilities your buttons change into are varied enough, it's already been demonstrated that we get to use a higher number of different abilities mapped to these buttons while still having good flow.

I'm ready to buy multiple boosts of Summoner for my alts and countless new players will be drawn to this class, and current Machinist too which for whatever reason these players who are apparently far more skilled than the ordinary player seem to dislike with a passion. Regardless, beyond their echo chamber the masses are still cheering for this rework just as they did for when Machinist received the one it got for Shadowbringers. No amount of complaining will dampen that excitement, nor will it force the devs to revert these changes and create yet another new job next expansion like they've had to do for Summoner each time.

[Grimoire-M]

And hundreds of thousands of people more are looking forward to a Summoner that doesn't hurt people's hands to play and that actually focuses on summon magic after 8 years of waiting. The abilities your buttons change into are varied enough, it's already been demonstrated that we get to use a higher number of different abilities mapped to these buttons while still having good flow.

I'm ready to buy multiple boosts of Summoner for my alts and countless new players will be drawn to this class, and current Machinist too which for whatever reason these players who are apparently far more skilled than the ordinary player seem to dislike with a passion. Regardless, beyond their echo chamber the masses are still cheering for this rework just as they did for when Machinist received the one it got for Shadowbringers. No amount of complaining will dampen that excitement, nor will it force the devs to revert these changes and create yet another new job next expansion like they've had to do for Summoner each time.

Honestly my FC, CWL, and Twitter full of XIV players all collectively said ‘Wow, pretty! I might go back to my main again to watch people play this! Are you happy for Summoner?’ and after I explained why I wasn’t they were upset on my behalf. So I’m pretty damned sure half the Summoner mains are pissed off. Everyone agrees it’s pretty. Once they hear about the mechanics they don’t want to touch it.

[aveyond-dreams]

Honestly my FC, CWL, and Twitter full of XIV players all collectively said ‘Wow, pretty! I might go back to my main again to watch people play this! Are you happy for Summoner?’ and after I explained why I wasn’t they were upset on my behalf. So I’m pretty damned sure half the Summoner mains are pissed off. Everyone agrees it’s pretty. Once they hear about the mechanics they don’t want to touch it.

I have 0 reason to believe you when everyone I know is rejoicing that the job is finally playable and free from its 8-year long thematic identity crisis. For every old main lost 10 or 20 are ready to take their place. I suppose that what's happens when you turn a job into something that it wasn't supposed to be, now that it's fixed people who liked the broken thing get angry and act like the sky is falling while most people are having a good time.

The mechanics are a thousand times better than dots and ghosting pets. I suppose someone will chime in to say how managing all that was a "sign of skill!" who I guess will then go on to tell me how casting Blizzard 4 is a cardinal sin or some other convoluted strategy like how they were forced to work around all of summoner's glitches. New summoner is straightforward, mechanically diverse enough for what is basically a new job, and a visual treat on top of it all. Old summoner will be in the hindsight of many people's minds come 6.0.

[Sunako]

I want to try the job myself before the judge. Summoner was already ruined for me during this expansion because of the separated Aetherflow system, but I still enjoyed playing it.

[Rolder50]

And hundreds of thousands of people more are looking forward to a Summoner that doesn't hurt people's hands to play and that actually focuses on summon magic after 8 years of waiting. The abilities your buttons change into are varied enough, it's already been demonstrated that we get to use a higher number of different abilities mapped to these buttons while still having good flow.

You know when I stop to think about it, the whole “actually uses summon magic now” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Logically speaking, current summoner is way more “summoner” then the new version.

I look at it like this;

Current SMN: You summon a pet. You have direct control, can tell it to move around, can have it execute attacks on your behalf, and have it give you buffs.

New SMN: You summon a pet. It gives you a buff, maybe does a singular attack, then leaves.

Really just give current SMN egis primal models and boom there’s your summoner fantasy.

[zcrash970]

You know when I stop to think about it, the whole “actually uses summon magic now” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Logically speaking, current summoner is way more “summoner” then the new version.

I look at it like this;

Current SMN: You summon a pet. You have direct control, can tell it to move around, can have it execute attacks on your behalf, and have it give you buffs.

New SMN: You summon a pet. It gives you a buff, maybe does a singular attack, then leaves.

Really just give current SMN egis primal models and boom there’s your summoner fantasy.

You're poking a hole in their logic. You're going to be hunted down now

[rewd]

You know when I stop to think about it, the whole “actually uses summon magic now” doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Logically speaking, current summoner is way more “summoner” then the new version.

I look at it like this;

Current SMN: You summon a pet. You have direct control, can tell it to move around, can have it execute attacks on your behalf, and have it give you buffs.

New SMN: You summon a pet. It gives you a buff, maybe does a singular attack, then leaves.

Really just give current SMN egis primal models and boom there’s your summoner fantasy.

You didn't even mention the fact that primals only show up at level 90. The "flashy boom boom" gang always treated Egis as the main culprit for whatever issue they had with SMN and now they are actually forced to see all three of them all the time...

[Sequora]

Imagine being excited for summons that do even less then they did before. Can’t wait for summon 1 2 1 2 1 2 summon 1 2 1 2 1 2 rotation!

And what are we doing pre6.0? 1 1 1? They literally gave us an ability so that we wouldn’t have to use two of our spells (Tri disaster).

Egi assaults were interesting, but they’re super clunky.

I am so glad I don’t have to stare at dot timers anymore.

[Rolder50]

And what are we doing pre6.0? 1 1 1? They literally gave us an ability so that we wouldn’t have to use two of our spells (Tri disaster).

Egi assaults were interesting, but they’re super clunky.

I am so glad I don’t have to stare at dot timers anymore.

They literally took the worst part of current summoner (auto pilot phoenix phase where all you do is alternate two buttons) and made that the entire job.

[Grimoire-M]

So I've made no secret that I think DOTs are fundamentally boring. However, I don't think that having them in the summoner was some fundamental break with the core design philosophy of the class. People keep comparing how the current Summoner plays to the classic games... like they said, in the classic games, if you could summon Bahamut, you summoned Bahamut. (Or Knights of the Round, or Eden or...) So if we took the classic gameplay loop, the proper way to build a Summoner would be to have this rotation: Bahamut>Bahamut>Bahamut>Bahamut>Ether>Bahamut>Bahamut.

Again, DOTs are boring, but they did need to flesh out the Job some to make it work in a more active system. I think the logic is that with DOTs you could spend more time commanding your pet, so honestly the odd spell out is actually Ruin (Though obviously more time to command your pet means more time for it's AI to mess things up).

TL : DR: DOTs kindof suck, but the reason they suck had nothing to do with job identity.

To move to a more constructive post, I do agree that DoTs needed a purpose in the rotation, I disagree that they didn't have a place in Summoner's core kit. Their mechanical purpose is well known. However, their thematic purpose is directly tied to Arcanist, representing spells intended to disrupt their enemies aether, effectively making them magical poison/disease/curses on their own. Arcanima is directly tied to this iteration of Summoner in the lore, and I personally like that aspect to them, because it's flavorful as fuck as well as mechanically interesting. Still, I agree that DoTs by themselves aren't as interesting, just being multi-target upkeep tools. They need something to compliment them. Fester and Bane have been those buttons historically, and I agree they're not enough on their own, though anyone who thinks Bane isn't satisfying to use is just wrong, straight up. Fester I thought should have been replaced, Same with Energy Drain. That said SE did try to add that kind of synergy once in the form of FesterRuins, and someone (aveyond-dreams, probably) promptly got mad about it and whined about Summoner not being Summoner, so that mechanic got removed. And to their credit, I agree. It didn't really make sense. You're cursing your enemies, wearing down their aether, to what end?

Where I think those complaints went wrong, is failing to make the logical leap of Summoners working WITH your Summons, instead constantly complaining about graphical nonsense that SE was clearly working on in the background, instead of seeing the aesthetics within those mechanics.

There's a reason I've been advocating for us to do something with Egis since Shadowbringers. In fact I wanted Egis to proc their own job gauge when attacking targets with DoTs on them akin to Bard's Repertoire but easier to understand and control. Why? Because it serves the lore and a mechanical purpose in the same way DoTs do. Thematically what that interaction would represent is us wearing down our opponents aether and making them more susceptible to our Egi's influence, allowing them to draw out their aether and stockpile it, in a sense mirroring the tempering/drowning/general-soul-draining that actual primals do. And what would we get as a payoff for that gauge? The very Avatar-like actions like what we're getting now. That's what I wanted to see happen. In this way not only would it be extremely accurate to the lore, but it would also confirm to some Summoners (aveyond-dreams, apparently) that their pet exists and is in fact doing something worthwhile within the rotation at all times. Instead we got an on-rails Book Bard and kept the same ghosting issues, masked again by lockouts, this time in the form of Attunements, as well as elemental spells that are straight up not even cast by the pet. That's not what Summoner is. That's what goddamned Geomancer and Black Mage are for.

Again, I don't think anyone thinks new Summoner LOOKS bad. The problem is it will feel bad, or worse, boring, in the long run. And that's my problem with the job. That's why I'm certain this iteration of Summoner is an abject failure mechanically, in spite of them getting the aesthetic they've always needed. No one sane's arguing against that. What aveyond-dreams there doesn't get is we're on THEIR side. They just think the graphics are more important than mechanics. I wanted to interact -with- the cool avatars and carbies as part of the whole rotation. That means making our pet an active part of our mechanical rotation and fixing the damned pet AI, not stripping it out entirely. Hell I wouldn't even be mad if our DoT potency went directly into carby autos, with the appropriate shaving on filler spell potency. As long as both the Summoner and the pet are actively participating in combat within every single GCD, I wouldn't have been upset. Hell I think DoTs could have been -made- into pet actions and it would've solved the problem. You telling me Garuda and Ifrit can't do that when both have already done so in multiple instances both player and fight wise? Hell no.

There are multiple ways this could have been done better. And I'm going to argue for them all for the next two years.

Summoners are Arcanists in XIV. Mechanics are Aesthetics. Graphics don't make interesting gameplay. If that were the case Bahamut would've been enough. This ain't any better. And all the flavor-of-the-month players will leave it in search of more fun jobs before the end of the first raid tier.