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

[Bonkleberry]

I got my SMN to 90 and the job feels complete now and I like it. The three new elemental favor spells you get at level 86 change up the job and give it the meat other jobs seems to have. Those spells and the big summons are also fun to use--I find it hard to not sing that one Akon "smack that" song during Titan phases now and smacking my foes with a book is satisfying.

[rewd]

I got my SMN to 90 and the job feels complete now and I like it. The three new elemental favor spells you get at level 86 change up the job and give it the meat other jobs seems to have. Those spells and the big summons are also fun to use--I find it hard to not sing that one Akon "smack that" song during Titan phases now and smacking my foes with a book is satisfying.

There is a huge design problem if a job needs to reach level 86 to feel complete.

[Bonkleberry]

Oh! I also want to jump in here and say that there seems to be a clear order to summon the three elementals in at level 86 and beyond. Ifrit's Crimson combo is quick and big damage, so you kinda want to lead with it. The two Ifrit charges are also best used early in a fight before everything starts getting killed because of the cast times. The Titan phase comes next, because it is also big damage that is highly mobile for repositioning after Ifrit and gives you a lot of opportunity to weave other spells if you need to. The Garuda phase goes last because it has one high damage cast spell you want to get off, but the other spells are pretty much the same DPS as Ruin III and Tri-Disaster, so you do not lose anything significant if you run out of time and need to clip the Garuda phase to jump into Bahamut/Pheonix.

[Caiahar]

There is a huge design problem if a job needs to reach level 86 to feel complete.

Yeah. I was only leveling SMN from 54 to 60 recently but while I do enjoy the gameplay loop, it really does seem like the job hardly changes for majority of leveling. Most things from progression are upgrades to existing stuff, and while I'm not hating on that design mentality specifically, it happens way too much that it doesn't really feel like you get new toys, so to speak. Dreadwyrm Trance is an upgrade to Aethercharge, but mechanically it just makes the ruin/outburst casts instant and gives a new visual. Which is nice but again, doesn't feel that different. Level 60 you get Deathflare as an ogcd.to use during dreadwyrm trance which is good. However, that same ability that turns to deathflare gives you the level 86 abilities, and I feel like those 3 spells should have been added in the 60-70 range at most, considering that from level 30 all the way to 86, you're having the nearly the same exact rotation. Aethercharge/Dreadwyrm/Summon Bahamut, Slow 2 casts, instant 4 casts, really fast instant 4 casts. It feels unfinished for majority of it.

yes you do have other stuff, like ruin 4, but those dont add much in the way of the rotation and are more just add ons. The level 86 abilities do change the core gameplay loop a bit to make it more fun and varied.
Plus, the description of gemshine and precious brilliance state that you do fire, wind and earth damage respectively, but until *level 72* they just look exactly like ruin (at least at 60, Astral flow updates ruin and outburst). Which is just a visual change but I feel its really important because then it does feel like you're just using slightly slower or faster versions of ruin (which not to mention, before level 54 looks really boring). They should have added the fire, wind, and earth effects far earlier than level 72 especially since that looked like a huge selling point in the job trailer, that you get to use elemental attacks now.
Not to mention the primals themselves, level 90 is way too late to update the summon of egis to summons of ifrit, garuda and titan. I realize you get bahamut at 70 and phoenix at 80 but getting the full job fantasy only at level 90 isn't good. Should have them earlier, at least by 80, and put the capstone as something new.
I was originally planning to grind Summoner to at least 80 when EW came out but quickly found out about how bad the level progression was and how I'd have to wait a long while for anything new and exciting.

TL;DR, Summoner only really feels finished at 86, 90 for the job fantasy. Leveling progression is very boring.

[Dyvid]

So I got level 86 today and can say it does change the job from mundane to somewhat engaging, mainly because it because a very fast paced and spammy job.

Ifrit Phase if you slowest with longer cast time and some odd dash that I don't care. Would like for the second part of that combo to be a dash back.

Garuda Phase is dropping the ground AoE DoT that last for 15s, then spam 1.5s attacks 4 times.

Titan Phase becomes weaving a oGCD and GCD together 4 times.

Bahamut and Phoenix are still the same; Enkindle, spam 1 or 2, and weave ED/Fester in between.

Elemental Mastery is something that needs to come sooner rather than later, levels 60 or 70.

I'm still disappointed in the direction the job went and wondering why on some of the design choices. For one, after almost 7 years now why couldn't they have added Shiva, Ramuh, and Leviathan? The mechanics are now in play; Aethercharges adds 3 primal elements. DWT could have added the umbral element Ramuh, Titan, and Leviathan while FWT could have added the Astral elements of Ifrit, Shiva, and Garuda. I know some say maybe next xpac but it's been a very long time coming and what better time then when you do a complete overhaul.

Another is why remove pets outright but keep them for the most annoying thing. For years players have asked for Devotion to be moved from pet to players because pet disappeared during Demi Phase. Now you can't used Shield or Devotion when Egi or Demi is summoned only compounding the problems. Further more would it have been such an issue to just have Carby and Egi auto attack for a little added damage but let alone retain a shred of old identity?

Aetherflow is something that just feels like it's on life support now and ED should just be tossed with Fester and Painflare going to charges.

[Sequora]

There is a huge design problem if a job needs to reach level 86 to feel complete.

I disagree. I think most new jobs feel incomplete before they reach the level cap that they were introduced in.

[MagiusNecros]

I've played SMN in a few alliance raids and trials and I can say overall with boss mechanics the job performs fine and you suffer very little downtime as a result. I'd say give it more of a chance.

[Rika007]

There is a huge design problem if a job needs to reach level 86 to feel complete.

That's not a problem with SMN though, thats been a problem with EVERY job in this game literally since 2.0. Incomplete rotations and kits the moment your synced down from max level. WHM without holy in any dungeon during ARR. Black Mage without Fire 4 till level 60 in HW. WAR without Inner Release till 70 in SB. SMN without Phoenix at 80. The list can go on and on.

Bringing it up here isn't really the best commentary on SMN, as it's literally the overall design philosophy by Yoshi's team since day one. Wither its good design or not is your call. I dislike it as well, but I sill say that of the many cases we had EW SMN is one of the less egregious examples. At least the entire core loop is available to you from basically level 50 on, so unless you are in literally beginning level dungeons you actually have a loop you can practice on, which is a net positive for new players compared to the old Summoner leveling experience for pretty much every expansion, where you essentially played a different job every 10 levels.

[rewd]

That's not a problem with SMN though, thats been a problem with EVERY job in this game literally since 2.0. Incomplete rotations and kits the moment your synced down from max level. WHM without holy in any dungeon during ARR. Black Mage without Fire 4 till level 60 in HW. WAR without Inner Release till 70 in SB. SMN without Phoenix at 80. The list can go on and on.

Bringing it up here isn't really the best commentary on SMN, as it's literally the overall design philosophy by Yoshi's team since day one. Wither its good design or not is your call. I dislike it as well, but I sill say that of the many cases we had EW SMN is one of the less egregious examples. At least the entire core loop is available to you from basically level 50 on, so unless you are in literally beginning level dungeons you actually have a loop you can practice on, which is a net positive for new players compared to the old Summoner leveling experience for pretty much every expansion, where you essentially played a different job every 10 levels.

How many jobs feel completely empty and barren until level 86 in Endwalker, besides SMN? If the answer is "No other job" then it is a SMN problem.

The only job that gets close is Reaper, which at least "only" has to wait until level 80.

[Rika007]

Black Mage- Doesn't have access to amplifier or paradox till 86, which without having to focus on your timers anymore is literally the only skill ceiling on the job now besides fight knowledge.

White Mage- this Job is literally always baren.

Scholar- See white Mage

Monk- Half of it's masterful blitz abilities are unlocked post 86, and masterful blitz is literally now its core mechanic with greased lightning gone.

Paladin- Entire new Confetior rotation not unlocked until freaking 90, and it was one of the more boring tank jobs before this.

And this is just if you set the nebulous level of 86. Every other job have core mechanics left out of their kit at 65 or above that just leaves their kits feeling rough and incomplete. So no it is not JUST a SMN problem. Every job has 100's of hours of gameplay essentially made very bland due to the decision to ability sync with your level.