Quote Originally Posted by Anvaire View Post
I think in terms of Design and identity it does feel to me like being a summoner, because you do Summon simalcrums of the primals.

In terms of old summoner, i understand why people liked the dots, but that identity shrank over time, and eventually was divorced from the rest of the class. Every attempt that was made to make the dots synergize with the rest fo the kit ultimatly failed and was reworked. There is nothing wrong with a dot class, but being Heavy on dots + heavy on pets / summons didnt really work.

The current summoner identity resolves around evoking the primals and using their essence to fight. Im not sure what you mean by less meaningful in the sense that the entire rotation is a rotation of summons. The only thing i can think you mean is that the arcanum summons appear do stuff then vanish again. While demis sit and pew pew. Having Garuda, ifrit and titan remain would be ideal, but i think the reason they didnt is due to the carbuncle spells.

But if its you want the pets to be more like oG egis, then id rather take this rendition and the demi stystem. Yes they are, merely animations, but id take that and the possibility of a wider reptoire of summons in the future over the old system where we sat on a choice of one or the other.

I dont think its bad or wrong for someone to dislike new summoner, but i think if people want the old summoner, that ship has sunk and failed. There is only one case of SQEX ever going back on a rework, and that was Caster bard - and in reality they only removed cast times.

I dont agree that the Summoner lacks identity, its about summoning Simalcrums of primals and infusing their aether into the summoners own spells - I will concede that the summons are mostly animations and people who wanted an actual "pet" would find it unrewarding. But then the alternative is the janky pet ui and a limitation on what summons we can get.
This is a good explanation of issues with old Summoner.

Every other job has, more or less, a very clear evolution of class identity as it levels.
I have played SMN since 2.0, and even though I enjoyed playing it, there was always that feeling of disconnect between its two kits, DoTs and summoning. Most of this is how it branches off of Arcanist, then has to form it's own identity. As the SMN grew, however, the DoTs felt more and more like something that was just there.

This current identity of SMN feels like it is going in the right direction. Separate buttons were paired down into buttons that change contextually. The kit doesn't feel like two separate jobs fighting for supremacy.
The only real issue that keeps it from feeling complete is a lack of low-level skill progression and a lack of meaningful OGCDs. If they were to change Energy Drain back to a 30 sec cast, make Ruin IV an OGCD, and give us a low-level equivalent of Astral Flow (specifically the 86 trait), then I believe SMN would feel more fulfilling as it progresses.