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

[ssunny2008]

I enjoy how this thread has turned into everyone vs aveyond; the ratio of likes between posters says it all.

What do you (or she?!) expect?

It´s not the first time and won´t be the last time, especially since the whole argumentation is like "New SMN is a real SMN, the majority wanted it so, everyone fell in love with it on the tour, blabla...."

It´s the same with any MNK thread. Ppl (the holy majority) don´t even play MNK, better said... they HATE everything about the class but some punch and kick animations. So MNK got changed and changed into braindead-mode, but do they play MNK now? Or do they play positionals? Will they start to compete in the endgame? I guess not.
The new SMN is nothing but a result of similar threads. SMN didn´t got fixed, it has become a new class thanks to a bunch of pointless comments. Now we´ve a running animation-festival, which has even less depth than DNC.

And ofc, this one girl / guy / divers is running around like "New SMN is so insane, look all the opinions from reddit, tumblr, etc.!", but haven´t even played it by itself, just to make fun about everyone who is losing his warlock he / she might´ve played for decades. And they swear on opinions from the media tour... opinions from ppl who got paid to claim "It´s sooooo awesome!".

On top he / she / it doesn´t even play SMN... self-claimed "I love SMN, but it´s so bad to play that i stay on BLM / RDM and have like 3 alts only to play BLM!".
How does it even make sense? How can someone love a class but stays away from it like that?! Because they love an idea in her head... some mighty picture which appears if they hear the word "Summoner", NOT THE GIVEN CLASS!

TLDR:

SE caters ppl who

- don´t even play the class
- don´t even play the endgame
- don´t have a clue about the class, but think they´ve one
- just love an idea
- just look at animations
- make fun about others who lose their main-class
- nitpicking arguments from everywhere and claim it with a word called "majority"
- come up with FF-series lore, but shit on it at their next post

Does it make sense? I guess not... And it´s not like SE could´ve created a new SMN next to the old one. Or better... they could finally come with some skilltrees.

[aveyond-dreams]

Enthusiastic posts such as the one above do little to sway people to the cause of affliction warlock summoner.

How one can claim that new summoner is more shallow than dancer is a mystery to me. And then, there is talk of what is or isn't honesty.

[Arkdra]

It is patently obvious that people didn't like the current state of summoner or else they wouldn't be reworking it. They don't put in that kind of effort if they don't have internal metrics and feedback indicating the job is in the toilet, popularity-wise. Now, saying that the rework hits the mark for people is more or less ludicrous. While the buzz I've seen has almost universally been positive, all of that buzz has been "wow it looks like a summoner now!" and not "that looks like it's going to be fun!" So time will actually tell. For my money, it looks like the worst remake of the lot and that is saying something because the drk changes in shb completely gutted that job.

[Karshan]

Does it make sense? I guess not... And it´s not like SE could´ve created a new SMN next to the old one. Or better... they could finally come with some skilltrees.

YES.

They admitted a year or 2 ago they messed up on the design, why not go fully on that road of acknowledgement.

Why not say, ok, the class so far was really more of an arcanist, so we'll rework it a bit by removing the demis, expanding on the strategic magic aspects (dots, aetherflow and more) and transforming the egis into real pets, and give it Arcanist name or whatever.

And then we will add a dedicated job that is Summoner, with a rotation based on a dozen of lesser and elder summons, working similarly to ff 1-9. Now that we have enough lore to give a dozen summons to people, and enough levels to not give them all at once.

That may have had some people unhappy for some reason (there always are), but a lot less, and would not have created such division (that was never their intention :P) among the playerbase.

They would still be casters so hare the gear and you can easily switch anytime, there would still be 2 gameplays, there would be pets, dots and summons, just not mixed together... Anyone thinking summoner is a bit simple and just a flashy call to FF crowd could flock to the Arcanist, anyone here because of FF rather than the MMO could do the opposite, each could be tried out...

I like the rework because it allows SMN to exist, I dislike the rework because they didn't give a choice and killed Arcanist for people who were attracted to it.

[Roda]

YES.

So long as I get to keep my sparkle dog, I'm down. :>

(Ps I wish they would finally do something like this with brd and archer. And let bards focus on the artistry and let archer fans not have the thematic baggage of a bard.)

[ssunny2008]

I like the rework because it allows SMN to exist, I dislike the rework because they didn't give a choice and killed Arcanist for people who were attracted to it.

Seriously skilltrees would´ve solved a lot of issues and discussions over the years. Just give every class 3 subtrees and / or combine them.

For SMN it would be like

a) 5.0 SMN
b) 6.0 SMN
c) Scholar

or MNK

a) Positional-heavy tree with more movement in the Fist of Wind stance
b) "Blitz" - tree in FoF stance
c) Tankmonk?! in the FoE stance

or combine BLM and WHM like

a) BLM as it is
b) A white and black magic combination with way more Dots and ground effects, but more versatile
c) WHM

RDPS classes could be 1 Main class with all 3 subclasses aswell

a) BRD as Dotrange
b) MCH as burstrange
c) DNC as procc range

RDM could be like

a) RDM with doublecast
b) Melee-heavy RDM with spreaded buffs?!
c) Astrologian?!

What about...

a) DRK
b) Reaper
c) a mix?!

And so on...

There would´ve been a lot of possibilities to cater the players with different roles, or better... the same core role but different skillsystems. Everyone could be happy to be that arcanist with summons, or burst summoner, maybe a positional lover or hater, whatever is possible.
Don´t know why SE don´t try it. In the end we wouldn´t even need like 20 solo classes, when all of them would´ve subtrees and combinations which fit together in some way.

[Rolder50]

I won't deny your point about DRK and MCH which lost some complexity in their redesign (although arguably, most of the complexity came from clunky job design and mechanics), or even wome other jobs which lost some complexity / skill ceiling over the course of extensions.
Here SMN has lost DoTs management mainly, in profit of elemental summons which do seem to be a bit more meaningful and deep than keeping DoTs up. I won't say we lost Demi management as we were mostly trying to avoid bugs and ghosting. I think it's a bit different, especially as the rework hasn't changed half of the job, and focused on its downtime.
SMN has been my main since I started FFXIV, and in principle I'm not sure this version of the job speaks to me, but I don't think it's made easier (or ruined) from its previous iterations.

This doesn't sound quite right. Summoner is losing...
DOT Management
Tri-disaster cooldown management
Pet management
Consideration of Egi-Assault and Ruin 4 usage such that you have Ruin 4s for Bahamut or weaving, and egi-assaults for movement, without overcapping when you go into a demi-phase

And what do we get in exchange? We get the most boring part of the existing kit, hitting two buttons during Phoenix phase, except that is now the entire job.

[MercuryD]

It is patently obvious that people didn't like the current state of summoner or else they wouldn't be reworking it. They don't put in that kind of effort if they don't have internal metrics and feedback indicating the job is in the toilet, popularity-wise. Now, saying that the rework hits the mark for people is more or less ludicrous. While the buzz I've seen has almost universally been positive, all of that buzz has been "wow it looks like a summoner now!" and not "that looks like it's going to be fun!" So time will actually tell. For my money, it looks like the worst remake of the lot and that is saying something because the drk changes in shb completely gutted that job.

The devs don't need community feedback to tell them it needed changed. Watch YoshiP talking to Larry about it.
-2.0 SMN was rushed, they thought they could fix it in 3.0
-3.0 they felt it still was broken but they would try fixing in 4.0
-4.0 was even more broken and they weren't sure where to go for 5.0
-5.0 they tried fixing again and decided that 5.X will be on life support the plug will be pulled in expac. He dead.
-6.0 Here we is SMN 2.0 for real. How this goes remains to be seen.

[MagiusNecros]

You pretty much go through a summon cycle over and over. I'll personally love it since it'll feel like a BLM with a bunch of instant casts outside some slight downtime when Bahamut or Phoenix are recharging. Bahamut/Phoenix share a CD I am assuming of 60 seconds. So with that in mind we have:

16 seconds of Bahamut/Phoenix
12.63 seconds of Ifrit
12.05 seconds of Titan
10.29 seconds of Garuda

Roughly 50.97 seconds. So after Bahamut/Phoenix you only need to spend 10 seconds or 5 GCDs before continuing to summon chain again.

Bahamut > Arcanum > Filler > Phoenix > Arcanum > Filler > Repeat

Filler is probably going to be Ruin 3, ED/ES, Fester/Pain, Ruin 4. I suspect Ruin 3 and Fester/Pain/Ruin 4 weaving will be a thing.

SMN will not want Spellspeed I don't think.

[rewd]

I won't deny your point about DRK and MCH which lost some complexity in their redesign (although arguably, most of the complexity came from clunky job design and mechanics), or even wome other jobs which lost some complexity / skill ceiling over the course of extensions.
Here SMN has lost DoTs management mainly, in profit of elemental summons which do seem to be a bit more meaningful and deep than keeping DoTs up. I won't say we lost Demi management as we were mostly trying to avoid bugs and ghosting. I think it's a bit different, especially as the rework hasn't changed half of the job, and focused on its downtime.
SMN has been my main since I started FFXIV, and in principle I'm not sure this version of the job speaks to me, but I don't think it's made easier (or ruined) from its previous iterations.

Elemental summons are a replacement for Egi Assaults and Enkindle, not DoTs. SMN lost DoTs and got nothing in return.