6.0 Summoner: Thoughts on an Unsuccessful Rework After 1 Month of Gameplay

[MyakotApelsia]

It's almost as if there's a vocal minority of players who are unhappy with it.

Ask any random summoner in-game and they will tell you new summoner is a true summoner and a huge improvement over the WoW class it used to be.

Unsurprising

After all, people that dont like it anymore will move to better designed jobs, like blm or rdm /shrug.

Also, omegalul at "true summoner"

[tearagion]

It's almost as if there's a vocal minority of players who are unhappy with it.

Ask any random summoner in-game and they will tell you new summoner is a true summoner and a huge improvement over the WoW class it used to be.

In an amazing reversal of expectations, people who are unhappy with how summoner plays won't be playing summoner in game

[Anvaire]

It's almost as if there's a vocal minority of players who are unhappy with it.

Ask any random summoner in-game and they will tell you new summoner is a true summoner and a huge improvement over the WoW class it used to be.

There are two lenses you can look at the rework through.

A - Class identity and philosophy. Old summoner was more of an evoker, new summoner is more of a summoner. The Evoker calls the essence of the primal, the summoner summon the primal. In this regard the Rework hits the mark. It summons more things and uses those summons to temper its arsenal of spells to the summons elements. There is nothing wrong with that.

B - Class Mechanics and rotation. - Overall I would say the base mechanics of the reworks is fine in theory, but in practice it needs more work. That isnt to say scrunch it up and throw it away. Majority of the rotation is fine, but its a little stale. All the devs need to do is mitigate the inherant problems with the rotation clunkiness and add divergence and optimisation and complication to the Summons Rotations. The issue is there is nothing to build, nothing to track and therefore the job feels stale.

Its not a whole rejection of the rework that most people want, in actuality it is just a small adjustment. When people are saying it is too simple, they dont mean that the devs should scrunch it up throw it over their shoulder and start again, they just want adjustments and refinments on the job as a whole to make it more engaging.

Chucking all the feedback as a "vocal minority" isn't helpful, nor is the resolving door of "but it feels like a real summoner now." What is needed is meaningful discussion around the issues the class faces and what the solutions can be. Whether summoner is a "real summoner" or not is wholly and entirely based on perception. I do think it certainly leans more towards the summoning fantasy that most think summoner should have had on inception. I dont think many have an issue with this. Instead the issue lies in the mechanics of the class. Slight adjustments to the summons roational mechanics is probably all that is being asked for. That and some extra GCD's.

For example if we look at bahamut, one easy change would be to turn ankh morn into2 casts again and instead cut the potency in half. Tie WW's to GCD's again so it becomes a case of optimisation to get 6 ww's from 6 GCD's while fitting in 2 Akhn more, Energy drain, fester and Deathflare without delaying or losing ww's.

Overall its a small change that would give a sense of achievement from completing. Yes it means choices will need to be made to ensure Bahamut is used effectively, but it will reward players for this.

I think this is what most people who are unhappy are asking for. Inevitably there are some who will hate the rework because they loved its previous version. To them, i do understand their upset and frustration. This is always a risk when you rework a job, that inevitably some will be left behind. Either way though the issue is far removed from the question of is it a real summoner?

At the end of the day, no one has to agree with anyone else's opinion, but that doesnt mean we should reject it outright or hand wave it away as a "vocal minority" Nor should we direct ire at the devs who honestly would have done their best to rework the class and likely hoped it was an astounding success. Missteps happen, but what matters is how we react to them. Summoner isnt perfect, true, but it is not completely broken either. It just needs some tweaking and adjustments and it will be a solid class, that is fun and rewarding.

[Ransu]

Again with the mobility tax when every job is as mobile as they can be, even BLM the antithesis of a mobile job. That simply doesn't hold up anymore. SMN needs a damage buff, period.

I never said they didn't. They do need a buff, but they are not going to be competing with BLM or other top DPS jobs. They will hover in the range of mch/brd because they have similar mobility. You can call it a "tax" all you want, but its all about uptime balance. BLM has mobility tools, but the majority of SMN's rotation now is completely instant and BLM doesn't come close to the movement SMN has. While melee DPS are doing mechanics and are unable to be in melee range, MCH, BRD, SMN can attack constantly while on the move with basically zero downtime. So yes they get a "mobility tax" in terms of less dps.

[OtakuSempai]

Unsurprising

After all, people that dont like it anymore will move to better designed jobs, like blm or rdm /shrug.

Also, omegalul at "true summoner"

*gasp* Do I see someone who actually understands what survivorship bias is in this thread?

[Raikai]

Calling SMN's redesign unsuccessful isn't quite realistic. There are a ton of players playing SMN, if it was so unsuccessful it wouldn't be the case.

The OP has all the rights to ask for a higher skill ceiling (and I personally would love that depth myself), but that is not mutually exclusive with having an accessible/easy skill floor.

One thing that I agree regardless is that Summon Carbuncle should. Be. A. Cosmetic. Spell... It bothers me greatly to have that cat idling while I'm breaking a sweat casting. It doesnt even FACE the enemy.

[Raikai]

There are two lenses you can look at the rework through.

A - Class identity and philosophy. Old summoner was more of an evoker, new summoner is more of a summoner. The Evoker calls the essence of the primal, the summoner summon the primal. In this regard the Rework hits the mark. It summons more things and uses those summons to temper its arsenal of spells to the summons elements. There is nothing wrong with that.

B - Class Mechanics and rotation. - Overall I would say the base mechanics of the reworks is fine in theory, but in practice it needs more work. That isnt to say scrunch it up and throw it away. Majority of the rotation is fine, but its a little stale. All the devs need to do is mitigate the inherant problems with the rotation clunkiness and add divergence and optimisation and complication to the Summons Rotations. The issue is there is nothing to build, nothing to track and therefore the job feels stale.

A versus B is exactly what is happening at the moment with Machinist. The job now feels like a true machinist/gadgeteer, however the actual functionality is bland. Why the 3 main tools are nearly clones of each other? Why Overheat is just a 1 button spam instead of a combo? Why Automaton Queen is nothing but a glorified dot? None of these questions have to do directly with Class identity... It could've been the same if MCH remained as a "gunner with sprinkles of gadget" HW and SB.

[zcrash970]

I wonder how Yoshida-san would feel about Summoner if he was truly playing it during Pandaemonium and enjoy all the frustrations Summoners currently share. I don,t think the situation was create on purpose but it was create from ignorance of how the class playstyle feels. They didn't playtest it enough. If it was damage only the issue, the solution would be simple but it isn't just damage that I have issue with Summoner.

I think this is part of the problem. It's evident that the devs play certain jobs like yoshi and blm. Some jobs just feel better than others and some just feel like that were just slapped together. Healers and smn come to mind.

Take whm for example. Literally so many skills and traits are hot garbage. Like yeah, whm is easy to play but there's literally no point to freecure. Lilies should restore mp at least. Cure 3 is nice but is so niche that most people can't use efficiently. Lilybell is kinda useless outside of frequent raid hit

But going back to smn, I believe they said they realize smn will need a rework in 4.x. if that is so, I'm just sad that this is best that they can come up with. Like none of the issues were fixed other than turning haha/phoe into a standing turrent.
It feels like they had a checklist and need to summon full size egis was the only thing on that list

[yuguPixel]

Even though I do like the direction SMN has gone in for Endwalker, I agree a lot with your sentiments too. Having more attunements than you have GCDs to spend them by the time Demi-summon comes off cooldown on sounds like a really good idea.

[dinnertime]

I never said they didn't. They do need a buff, but they are not going to be competing with BLM or other top DPS jobs. They will hover in the range of mch/brd because they have similar mobility. You can call it a "tax" all you want, but its all about uptime balance. BLM has mobility tools, but the majority of SMN's rotation now is completely instant and BLM doesn't come close to the movement SMN has. While melee DPS are doing mechanics and are unable to be in melee range, MCH, BRD, SMN can attack constantly while on the move with basically zero downtime. So yes they get a "mobility tax" in terms of less dps.

Shadowbringers has shown that every DPS job can handle 100% uptime in difficult content. This was a big thing when people were debating if it was fair that Physical Ranged DPS should have a big gap in DPS compared to the rest at the time. Still is, actually.

Now in Endwalker some jobs got even more mobility, especially BLM. Like I said, it really doesn't hold up anymore.

Besides, SMN has always been the most mobile caster out of them all and had reasonable DPS until now. Some people are acting like this is new.

Calling SMN's redesign unsuccessful isn't quite realistic. There are a ton of players playing SMN, if it was so unsuccessful it wouldn't be the case.

I said this before, too. Because it got reworked and people are trying it out. Obviously tons of people are going to be playing it.

But then you see how many people cleared with it in Savage and it's the lowest out of the 3 casters. It puts in perspective in how arguably unsuccessful this rework was.