Summoner feels really, really dumbed down now

[Thoosa]

Idk but I like new summoner, but I’m only level 81 or so. Seems better not having so much button bloat.

[elioaiko]

The way I see it, this is how the dev wanted SMN to be, more in line with summon flash and go like in the tactics games seeing as they're a huge fan of tactics in general.

Also summoner in FF history doesn't have dots as well as a "main" summon like carbuncle, they just casted and summoned whatever they needed for the situation.

Ofc MMO combat is gonna have to treat it differently. But I think the current iteration of SMN feels like a go stepping stone. The dev team has had so much trouble with balancing SMN and fighting their class fantasy. This is way more focused even if it's not as rewarding.

Those who reminisce pre-EW SMN are allowed to feel like they're missing that complexity because it had choice and doing things right felt good. But tbh, the job was hectic, had split focus between managing dots, summons, and the pet AI. From developer's POV, it's disaster and they definitely wanted to change it. To someone trying it out, it was daunting and didn't have a natural way of "hey, this goes into this and that works because of that," because it was disjointed.

Depending on the reception, I think they will prune Aetherflow entirely come 7.0 in line of quick summons that range as filler dps (lesser summons) and support skills (moonstone carbuncle).

I don't think the dev team is ever going back because they're slowly but surely deleting every part of HW design in favor of easier ones to design around. They even said we aren't getting back that ambitious jump they had. It's not worth the experimental that can cause more harm to the current balance. I think they want to do more gradual changes over time to find a concept they stick with.

[Madoka]

Unrelated to how the thread started, but I don't want to make yet another thread to ask this, but for anybody who has leveled SMN up from ARR levels now, did they change the job quest storyline and fights at all? There was a problem after 5.0 of quests expecting you to have titan-egi tank several monsters, or bosses with heavy hitting attacks that you had to deal with yourself since the quest didn't give a tank npc. Then there was the whole lore thing of Tristan absorbing belial which was supposed to be a big no-no or something and now we just kinda do that before 50 anyway.

[Xrison]

I just started playing SMN recently. (Got up to lvl 60) and it just feels like something is... Missing. I'm a tank main, and my first DPS was RDM. It was a TON of fun. I decided to give SMN a shot and it just doesn't feel as engaging. You have 1 single target and 1 aoe attack, plus the primal summons which are sort of "meh". Does SMN get better after level 70, or is this about as good as it gets?

[Cerbolt]

I just started playing SMN recently. (Got up to lvl 60) and it just feels like something is... Missing. I'm a tank main, and my first DPS was RDM. It was a TON of fun. I decided to give SMN a shot and it just doesn't feel as engaging. You have 1 single target and 1 aoe attack, plus the primal summons which are sort of "meh". Does SMN get better after level 70, or is this about as good as it gets?

The only thing that seems to change as you level is that your summons get more flashy, that's about it really. So I'd say this is as good as it gets.

[MyakotApelsia]

New summoner, more like fifth healer without actual healing.

I really like the idea of phase-based job, but they just went for bare minimum of what that design needs. Your choice doesnt matter as much as advertised because 2 of 3 primals are free movement. Ifrit's gapcloser is more of advantage rather than something you have to work around. Garuda's dot damage from slipstream is barely noticeable on single target unless you are aiming for every last potency point for your parse.

Both demis got downgraded in design, going from something you've built up to, to "press 1 for 15 seconds 4head". Yeah, you throw festers around.... in bahamut. Holding them from phoenix for 2m burst phases means that phoenix, while being "1 minute burst phase", plays like old "ruin mage" that people like to hate. Nothing is different between them, which is just nothing but wasted potential, they could give every demi its own identity. Like give bahamut short cast times and add some more bahamut-themed things to it, so its "thicc damage demi", and give phoenix ogcds so it would be "swift ogcd demi". Already something that separates these two and makes hitting lvl 80 at least somewhat exciting.

"At least its real summoner now"? Is it tho? Just because its similar to rydia and yuna doesnt mean its THE summoner of the series. FF3, FF5 (and FFT with FF11 from what ive seen), in those games summoners do not cast spells by themselves, always casting summons, unless you crossjob something that can. So where is true summoner? Nowhere! Both old and new summoners are just another iteration of it, one is "Give your summons orders and do NOTHING related to summoning" and other is "Summon for some potency with no other effects and then do NOTHING related to summoning".

"But summoner shouldn't have dots!"? But Rydia had both Bio and Poison, are people just conveniently forgetting about it for the sake of saying that "new smn is similar to rydia = its good"?
I'd imagine current smn was just extremely rushed due to the fact that they've had 4 iterations prior to it in development and current has barebones execution.

"It's a good foundation though, they will add new things later!": Look at machinist. People said same thing. Nothing got added. And why is foundation released in major expansion instead of full job?

I do enjoy the skill replacement system, i think this is really good way to avoid button bloat. But they could've done so much more with it. Why are gemshine and brilliance unused in bahamut and phoenix? Or r3 and tri-disaster in gems?

[tearagion]

New summoner, more like fifth healer without actual healing.

I really like the idea of phase-based job, but they just went for bare minimum of what that design needs. Your choice doesnt matter as much as advertised because 2 of 3 primals are free movement. Ifrit's gapcloser is more of advantage rather than something you have to work around. Garuda's dot damage from slipstream is barely noticeable on single target unless you are aiming for every last potency point for your parse.

Both demis got downgraded in design, going from something you've built up to, to "press 1 for 15 seconds 4head". Yeah, you throw festers around.... in bahamut. Holding them from phoenix for 2m burst phases means that phoenix, while being "1 minute burst phase", plays like old "ruin mage" that people like to hate. Nothing is different between them, which is just nothing but wasted potential, they could give every demi its own identity. Like give bahamut short cast times and add some more bahamut-themed things to it, so its "thicc damage demi", and give phoenix ogcds so it would be "swift ogcd demi". Already something that separates these two and makes hitting lvl 80 at least somewhat exciting.

"At least its real summoner now"? Is it tho? Just because its similar to rydia and yuna doesnt mean its THE summoner of the series. FF3, FF5 (and FFT with FF11 from what ive seen), in those games summoners do not cast spells by themselves, always casting summons, unless you crossjob something that can. So where is true summoner? Nowhere! Both old and new summoners are just another iteration of it, one is "Give your summons orders and do NOTHING related to summoning" and other is "Summon for some potency with no other effects and then do NOTHING related to summoning".

"But summoner shouldn't have dots!"? But Rydia had both Bio and Poison, are people just conveniently forgetting about it for the sake of saying that "new smn is similar to rydia = its good"?
I'd imagine current smn was just extremely rushed due to the fact that they've had 4 iterations prior to it in development and current has barebones execution.

"It's a good foundation though, they will add new things later!": Look at machinist. People said same thing. Nothing got added. And why is foundation released in major expansion instead of full job?

I do enjoy the skill replacement system, i think this is really good way to avoid button bloat. But they could've done so much more with it. Why are gemshine and brilliance unused in bahamut and phoenix? Or r3 and tri-disaster in gems?

Nice post, well articulated complaints. Look forward to one of aveyond's 3 copy-pasted worthless replies

[aveyond-dreams]

Rydia was also an archer, to some degree. She could equip a handful of bows, certainly more than she had poison spells. If we follow that train of logic, Summoners should also be archers! The full list of her abilities can be found here. Most of the time you were casting elemental magic or summons. That's basically it. If you would like to see a return of poison magic, please voice your support in one of the many threads dedicated to a new caster for 7.0.

Even if new summons were only added as glamour options (and I sincerely hope that is not the case) I'll take a simple job that's actually playable without the kind of punishment that Shb SMN had or the convoluted mechanics competing for attention that have plagued the job since it was added in ARR.

[MyakotApelsia]

Rydia was also an archer, to some degree. She could equip a handful of bows, certainly more than she had poison spells. If we follow that train of logic, Summoners should also be archers! The full list of her abilities can be found here. Most of the time you were casting elemental magic or summons. That's basically it. If you would like to see a return of poison magic, please voice your support in one of the many threads dedicated to a new caster for 7.0.

Even if new summons were only added as glamour options (and I sincerely hope that is not the case) I'll take a simple job that's actually playable without the kind of punishment that Shb SMN had or the convoluted mechanics competing for attention that have plagued the job since it was added in ARR.

My point was that if you are going to use one specific iteration as an example of "why this is good and this is bad", then do it well, and do not take out specific parts of said iteration to prove your point. She casted actual blm spells, maybe we should remove summoner as a job and add summoning to black mage?

I personally didnt like dots. However, SHB SMN barely had any interaction when it came to them. For all intents and purposes, it was "pressing tri disaster 3 times and hardcasting them once".
If we take the logic of "it had dots, therefore it was dot job", why not apply it to other jobs? Paladin is dot job, pre-ew ninja was dot job, gunbreaker, healers, monk, hw drk. "Having dots" is not the same as "Working around dots", like how it was with pre-ew bard.

I enjoyed old summoner because it had buildup to your burst phases, those burst phases were very satisfying to pull off. We had to cast but we had resources to move around, not the other way around. Both bahamut and phoenix were different in what they did. Demi movement was clunky but they have fixed it in endwalker by fixing them in place, however at same time they removed what they were from gameplay perspective.

SHB SMN was also anything but hard or punishing. It was actually very simple, and i really feel like the only people that actually thought it was hard were the ones that looked at that one "2 minute opener" picture and thought "oh wow thats hard i wont play it". The only actual reason job would be punishing for you if you couldn't use at least one braincell when playing the game.

Say, they will bring new primals in. Without changing what primals do at its source, the only thing they will bring every such update is different animations on your gemshine without anything actually being different.

I personally don't mind them going this direction, as in "use primal, then your gamestyle changes", but as ive said, current smn fails at it. But you do you, the fact that other people dont enjoy it shouldn't affect what you enjoy.

[Dyvid]

Nice post, well articulated complaints. Look forward to one of aveyond's 3 copy-pasted worthless replies

Didn't take long. Anytime the word DoTs. It's tiresome really. Clearly the new SMN is so boring people would rather play the forums over the game.