New SMN is a mind-numbingly boring one-button job

[aveyond-dreams]

Once again the time has come to re-explain the fact that ARR's version of Summoner was a mashup of recycled thaumaturge assets organized in such a way as to mimic WoW's Warlock. The job description even included the word "demons" in its name. It could not have been more on the nose than that-a corruptive caster with dots and pets that were so far removed from anything Summoners could call on in the past that it was widely regarded as the worst Summoner iteration in the entire franchise, aside from FFXV's hardly-useable summons.

In twisting a beloved FF job to fit that mold and proceeding to try and make it work for the subsequent 8 years, all that came of it in the end was a broken and bugged job along with a crowd that somehow managed to remain unaware of the actual history of Summoner outside FFXIV. It was to rid the job of both its badly received gameplay and the stigma it was plagued with for the past decade that this rework happened. And now here we are, more players than ever playing Summoner, with some refusing to accept the current reality or at the least word their complaints in a way that doesn't turn people off.

[Imoen]

What's so unique about copy paste warlock playstyle? There was nothing unique about it, what are you on about? lol

Question is, what are you going on about? World of Warcraft is not Final Fantasy XIV?

Games borrow from each other, that's how the industry works. Doesn't change what the poster you quoted said. I personally don't remember warlock playing like summoner but I digress and it isn't relevant.

[RobynDaBank]

What warlock?? This game has no warlock... what is going on in this conversation, lmao

I think they mean to say that old Summoner was like WoW warlock.

[Rolder50]

I think they mean to say that old Summoner was like WoW warlock.

It's especially funny because comparing two dots that you fire and forget is absolutely nothing like a WoW Warlock. It's just an utterly stupid fallback for when you don't have an actual argument.

[tearagion]

I think they mean to say that old Summoner was like WoW warlock.

In a twist of irony, SMN now has it's own little version of soul shards in the job gauge to summon the primals.

[aveyond-dreams]

It's especially funny because comparing two dots that you fire and forget is absolutely nothing like a WoW Warlock. It's just an utterly stupid fallback for when you don't have an actual argument.

Let's recap then.

SMN is introduced in ARR with Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II, Virus, Garuda's Contagion along with cross class skills like Aero and Thunder, with the dot spells each being separate during that time. Yeah, that was a poison mage alright. There was hardly any reason to Summon anything but a floating green lettuce of venom and needless to say as a SMN from FFXI I was not impressed.

Later on thank goodness they began to see sense and merged some dots together while taking away Miasma II to give back to SCH as an aoe and giving SMN Miasma III. Also, Tri-Bind was a thing. Fast forward to Shadowbringers and they decided to tack on Ruination to the mix of systems as another thing to babysit with the only two cool summons being locked behind a significant wait that would be ruined if you got knocked out.

That sums up the legacy of old SMN.

Fast forward to the SMN of now. We open with Bahamut, cycle through our summons and their elemental trance spells, summon Phoenix, rinse and repeat. This design so far seems to be what clicks with people the most even if it isn't 100% perfect. The only remnants of the thematic and mechanical disaster of a job from 3.0-5.X are Energy Drain/Siphon and Fester. Painflare has always been a fun skill, but I would absolutely trade them all away for new summons or one-off attacks like Blue Mage's primal abilities that should rightly be part of Summoner's kit.

[tearagion]

Let's recap then.

SMN is introduced in ARR with Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II, Virus, Garuda's Contagion along with cross class skills like Aero and Thunder, with the dot spells each being separate during that time. Yeah, that was a poison mage alright. There was hardly any reason to Summon anything but a floating green lettuce of venom and needless to say as a SMN from FFXI I was not impressed.

Later on thank goodness they began to see sense and merged some dots together while taking away Miasma II to give back to SCH as an aoe and giving SMN Miasma III. Also, Tri-Bind was a thing. Fast forward to Shadowbringers and they decided to tack on Ruination to the mix of systems as another thing to babysit with the only two cool summons being locked behind a significant wait that would be ruined if you got knocked out.

That sums up the legacy of old SMN.

Fast forward to the SMN of now. We open with Bahamut, cycle through our summons and their elemental trance spells, summon Phoenix, rinse and repeat. This design so far seems to be what clicks with people the most even if it isn't 100% perfect. The only remnants of the thematic and mechanical disaster of a job from 3.0-5.X are Energy Drain/Siphon and Fester. Painflare has always been a fun skill, but I would absolutely trade them all away for new summons or one-off attacks like Blue Mage's primal abilities that should rightly be part of Summoner's kit.

The Ruination effect was introduced in Stormblood, it was only named in Shadowbringers. Your wait for a Demi is actually a couple second longer post-death now, until that you're basically doing the same thing as before which is spamming Ruin, only this time it comes in three flavours. Finally Blue Mage is entitled to all of its spells as overlap with summons has existed since FFVI with most notably Tsunami.

You've also conveniently left out that all skill expression has been removed from SMN, but I guess that's another positive to you.

[aveyond-dreams]

The Ruination effect was introduced in Stormblood, it was only named in Shadowbringers. Your wait for a Demi is actually a couple second longer post-death now, until that you're basically doing the same thing as before which is spamming Ruin, only this time it comes in three flavours. Finally Blue Mage is entitled to all of it's spells as overlap with summons has existed since FFVI with most notably Tsunami.

You've also conveniently left out that all skill expression has been removed from SMN, but I guess that's another positive to you.

You can choose to view the different Rite/Catastrophe spells as the same or not (even if they each have/trigger different effects, but anyway). To me, they are unique enough but I would like for them to be more distinct at lower levels. Hopefully they can devote some resources towards this. Rather than spamming Ruin to me it feels like I get to use spells akin to Rydia's black magic -ga nukes, so I'm pretty ok with that. Elemental magic is usually functionally the same in rpgs apart from their specific element, so if we want to reduce things that far then each ability in-game is nothing more than attack or magic commands with pretty animations.

And sorry but no, Blue Mage is entitled to 0 spells themed after the Summons so long as Summoner still can't even summon Ramuh or Leviathan. Though I despise Blue Mage with a passion I will say this. It was a better Summoner than the SMN of the past was for the longest time because honestly it had cooler abilities despite the fact that it can't call up Bahamut or Phoenix.

When it comes to the alleged "skill expression" of old SMN that came more from juggling glitches and systems stacked on top of each other, while some took pride in that there were ultimately more people who found that style of gameplay annoying. For every person attracted to the job for its "skill expression" 10 people took a look and decided they would rather play another job. Old SMN is the last job I could possibly recommend to anyone interested in this game. There was no justifying the state of the class prior to the rework other than niche preferences that were unfeasible to cater to any longer.

[tearagion]

You can choose to view the different Rite/Catastrophe spells as the same or not (even if they each have/trigger different effects, but anyway). To me, they are unique enough but I would like for them to be more distinct at lower levels. Hopefully they can devote some resources towards this. Rather than spamming Ruin to me it feels like I get to use spells akin to Rydia's black magic -ga nukes, so I'm pretty ok with that. Elemental magic is usually functionally the same in rpgs apart from their specific element, so if we want to reduce things that far then each ability in-game is nothing more than attack or magic commands with pretty animations.

And sorry but no, Blue Mage is entitled to 0 spells themed after the Summons so long as Summoner still can't even summon Ramuh or Leviathan. Though I despise Blue Mage with a passion I will say this. It was a better Summoner than the SMN of the past was for the longest time because honestly it had cooler abilities despite the fact that it can't call up Bahamut or Phoenix.

When it comes to the alleged "skill expression" of old SMN that came more from juggling glitches and systems stacked on top of each other, while some took pride in that there were ultimately more people who found that style of gameplay annoying. For every person attracted to the job for its "skill expression" 10 people took a look and decided they would rather play another job. Old SMN is the last job I could possibly recommend to anyone interested in this game. There was no justifying the state of the class prior to the rework other than niche preferences that were unfeasible to cater to any longer.

Whether you like it or not Blue Mage is thematically appropriate and justified.

The skill expression isn't alleged, the job was simply harder before. Whether it was due to the "jank" everyone likes to point at or design (it was both) it was just a more flexible and difficult job. This has been explained in detail to you before, but I guess you'd rather continue to trot out the same strawman.

[Corbeau]

New SMN is good.