Summoner feels really, really dumbed down now

[Madoka]

Despite the amount of posts they make in SMN threads, aveyond does not even have arcanist unlocked. And apparently hasn't played since 5.1 despite paying a sub to post, since they have two jobs at 80 and about ilvl 510. They really are only here to shitpost. Maybe even paying a sub just to do so.

[mathias-merodach]

Honestly, the calling of old SMN being hectic and having a split focus is entirely subjective and only opinion. I was once someone that was new had tried to it out. For me everything fell into place. I'm someone who felt that BLM was a hectic and painful mess to play while being pretty unfulfilling and boring on top of it. And, having BLM at 70 on an alt prior to EW, (I'm now trying it on my main to replace SMN), I never had anywhere near the fulfillment, comfort of play, and enjoyment compared to SMN.

And bringing up SMN history, it's always been whatever the game has required it to be. Sometimes to do nothing but summon, ala 3, sometimes to be a BLM, 4, a white mage, 9 and 10... There is nowhere near enough consistency to say it should't have DoT abilities. It's correct that summoners call whatever they need. That's in addition to what other skills they have depending on the game. Most of these are agmes where elements actually came into play; games where calling Ifrit and or a BLM using Fire actually -healed- enemies like Bombs not killed them. To bring up historical SMN is to invite the abilities their summons have in 11: Carbuncle could poison, Fenrir Paralyze, Titan could bind... it goes on. In FF3, Leviathan did EARTH damage when used by an Evoker. Rydia could poison in 4, or take 7 or 8 where anyone can be a summoner and through the use of Hades and Doomtrain inflict all sorts of status effects which include the DoT poison. To argue summoner history and then approve of how it is now in 14 is to ignore one of the biggest drawbacks: the MP cost. It was one of the differences between them and BLM's; the latter able to cast more for less damage with the former able to cause more damage (and a wide variety of effects as the games went on) at the price of more MP cost. That very cost is why, in games like Tactics, Tactics Advanced 1/2 they learn supports to halve the MP cost. The very nature that proponents for the change turn to is arguably against some of the very games they bring up: anti-spam. Adding to lack of consistency with the class, in Tactics Advanced 1 and 2, it was a -Viera- LOCKED job that came from the Status Ailment class Elementalist; requiring a Fencer ability and a WHM in the 1st game and 2 WHM in the 2nd The Viera who are spiritual, forest dwelling people that I'd say are decided different than Allag.

The point: there's almost no consistency to it. It is potentially one of the most inconsistent in background, getting it, uses, what summons can/can't do, in all of Final Fantasy. Compared to 11 alone, the summon's here are not even shadows of what they can do in that game. Just like Tactics, 7, 5, TA, and 11 are all their own games with their own takes on summoner (again, with some games allowing EVERY character to be summoner, even 'monks' like Tifa and Zell), old summoner was 14's summoner.

[Riusvell]

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?

Nicely put though where are my girls Eiko and Garnet? If we're bringing Iconic summoners in, at least include all of them!

[aveyond-dreams]

It's fascinating how those that pride themselves about being masters of old SMN cannot grasp the concept of posting from an alt. In any case come 6.1 this and another handful of alts that have fallen behind will get a SMN boost-assuming this crowd doesn't succeed in their plot to twist Summoner back into the poison mage/"Complex!" class they loved dearly that the rest of the world was veering away from all the while.

[Madoka]

You have to have an active subscription to post on the forums, why would you have an alt account you don't play but pay to keep active?

[Corbeau]

After a week of progging with new-SMN I absolutely love it even though it does feel on the simple side. Really I just want a second set of slightly different primals post-Phoenix, with different movement requirements and options. Let me call down the lightning with Ramuh and I'll never play another class again.

[aveyond-dreams]

You have to have an active subscription to post on the forums, why would you have an alt account you don't play but pay to keep active?

Since when do we pay to keep our alts active? This is not FFXI where you have to pay per character.

[mathias-merodach]

I think it is you that is obsessed with things; obsessed with the chance that maybe the change you say you enjoy so much might -actually- be undone. So you seek to do nothing but poke and prod at individuals expressing their honest opinions with nothing more than series of repetitive statements. You do this, I can only assume, out of a desire to get a volatile reaction because you either enjoy upsetting people or so you can claim the victim of being attacked. I would say this is further evidenced by, when all else has failed, you fall back on to shouts of "poison mage", "complex" and "Warlock" while using anecdotal evidence and unverifiable statements like "rest of the world" "all other's" "everyone else." But, for the sake of argument, let us say that your passion for this current summoner is real, and even I'm starting to doubt that it is, that still does not give you the moral high ground to attack and deride people because they have an opposing viewpoint. And what is this about a plot? You think that some group of players have managed to get together started to systematically post negativity about the rework with a deliberate and aimed goal amongst them? Or that maybe, just maybe, the rework is much more of a failure than you are comfortable admitting and that's why you attack others? And I can tell you this, after hitting 90 with the class last night, getting a fancier egi glam (because that's -all- your lvl 90 trait is) was not with the complete gutting of the class. And if -this- is what their intent was, then they should have introduced all of this class as Evoker and left summoner alone.

[dinnertime]

Say "DoTs" to scare and upset the Summoner Historians™. It works like a charm!

[aveyond-dreams]

I think it is you that is obsessed with things; obsessed with the chance that maybe the change you say you enjoy so much might -actually- be undone. So you seek to do nothing but poke and prod at individuals expressing their honest opinions with nothing more than series of repetitive statements. You do this, I can only assume, out of a desire to get a volatile reaction because you either enjoy upsetting people or so you can claim the victim of being attacked. I would say this is further evidenced by, when all else has failed, you fall back on to shouts of "poison mage", "complex" and "Warlock" while using anecdotal evidence and unverifiable statements like "rest of the world" "all other's" "everyone else." But, for the sake of argument, let us say that your passion for this current summoner is real, and even I'm starting to doubt that it is, that still does not give you the moral high ground to attack and deride people because they have an opposing viewpoint. And what is this about a plot? You think that some group of players have managed to get together started to systematically post negativity about the rework with a deliberate and aimed goal amongst them? Or that maybe, just maybe, the rework is much more of a failure than you are comfortable admitting and that's why you attack others? And I can tell you this, after hitting 90 with the class last night, getting a fancier egi glam (because that's -all- your lvl 90 trait is) was not with the complete gutting of the class. And if -this- is what their intent was, then they should have introduced all of this class as Evoker and left summoner alone.

That's a whole lot of words to say that you still cannot get over the fact that the job changed and you just didn't like it. That's quite alright, because I'm under no impression that a reversion or reintroduction of the themes and mechanics of pre-6.0 SMN would go down smoothly with the overwhelming majority of people.

What this really is reminds me of when you had people saying "omg no one would play bunny boys!" Only for them to become one of the most popular race/gender combinations much in the same way that SMN is now the most popular caster outside of JP, whose favourite caster is presently Red Mage, another straightforward class that is by no means "complex!"

Though if that is the case, unlike the bulk of people here I do have other jobs to fall back on. In the time after I dropped 5.X SMN I did manage to get a taste of so many of the other wonderful classes in this game that don't suffer from a permanent state of identity crisis (except Bard, but that's a battle for another day) and I was able to have a really great time.