Summoner rework is a huge dissapointment

[Reinha]

Why should the best utility jobs be near the bottom?

So that other jobs bring something useful too, such as higher damage. That's how balancing works. Not "let's give this one job every tool in the book and top tier damage so that they can have a guaranteed spot during progression AND farm".

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Well then I look forward to the reactions on the 18th/19th when some of the more frequent Summoner complainers are shocked to discover that the purpose of the live letter was to discuss literally everything else except job balancing. The option to acknowledge the present reality remains an option, however.

The only time I can remember where *forum* outrage along with outrage across all other social media sites was when male Viera weren't revealed and the playerbase was surprised with Hrothgar instead. They responded to that fairly quickly given that a 1000-liked post on a support thread popped up out of nowhere, the numbers of which aren't seen here.

I'm not excepting them to talk about job balancing but I am hoping. Also, you are wrong about one thing. The next LL isn't just going to them talking about their 10 year plan, that is just one part of the next LL. There is going to be a Q&A part of the LL also and there is a chance for them to take questions from this forum that involves job balancing. You doing just as much assuming like the rest of us when you say they won't talk about job balancing since no one really knows what is going to be talked about or what questions they are going to answer during the Q&A. You know what they say about assuming right?

[aveyond-dreams]

With all due respect, they are more likely to answer questions about whether it is lore-appropriate to eat the sandwiches made for us by the Crystal Exarch as opposed to answering any questions of actual substance. That was one moment I'll never forget back from one of the Shadowbringers Q&As. Direct questions about pressing issues are one thing they will almost certainly pass over in favor of less controversial topics, much to the frustration of pretty much everyone, myself included.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

With all due respect, they are more likely to answer questions about whether it is lore-appropriate to eat the sandwiches made for us by the Crystal Exarch as opposed to answering any questions of actual substance. That was one moment I'll never forget back from one of the Shadowbringers Q&As. Direct questions about pressing issues are one thing they will almost certainly pass over in favor of less controversial topics, much to the frustration of pretty much everyone, myself included.

Again assumptions, assumptions, assumptions. You may be right and they won't talk about the things we want to hear but that shouldn't stop us talking about it in threads like this and others. If we do then things will never change and we continue down this line of the devs not talking about the state of job heath. No matter what we need to continue having conversations so we can tell the devs that this is the stuff we want to hear. Making assumptions like you are will never help push this message forward. As I said if they don't talk about job balance doing the LL that's fine at least I know these conversations will continue on this forum in hopes one day they change their minds on sharing job balance info with us.

[P0W3RK1D]

I believe a big part of why summoner feels this..."simplistic" is again due to the box Square Enix has coded themselves into as far as their game design. Where as in other final fantasy games summoner had more factors to worry about than just their dps that made being a summoner feel powerful and a very nice and versatile damage support (or even a 1vALL carpet-bombing dps depending on how ya built em).
Summoner had to deal with enemy status effects,
knowing what each of your summons did,
mana management and learning to save your MP for the right moment,
knowing what your enemy did because most likely you have a summon in your arsenals to counter that specific attack, but your needed to know what it is,
and not to mention Elemental weaknesses (one of the cornerstones of a Final fantasy game, and yet a simultaneous disappointment burried within this game.

all this on top of the fact that ff14 summoner has only 5 summons, 3-4 of which functionally do the same thing.
there is no CHOICE, like there is with other final fantasy games summoners.

[IruruCece]

all this on top of the fact that ff14 summoner has only 5 summons, 3-4 of which functionally do the same thing.
there is no CHOICE, like there is with other final fantasy games summoners.

It's really, really ironic that aveyond has spent weeks trying to push their nerdcred about Final Fantasy "summoner" when they keep ignoring this very basic thing about this concept from the series in general. Coincidentally, many "summoners" throughout the series didn't just rely on their summons, they also often had access to a wide range of spells, far wider than three-shades-of-ruin. And if they didn't naturally have these abilities, players could choose to expand on their ability sets themselves.

Again assumptions, assumptions, assumptions. You may be right and they won't talk about the things we want to hear but that shouldn't stop us talking about it in threads like this and others.

Their entire gimmick has been to pretend that they are the REPRESENTATIVE of all people who love ruin mage and they have stated openly that they will be there to oppose any criticism of the job no matter where it surfaces.

If they're the representative, that doesn't say very good things about the people they claim to speak for.

[aveyond-dreams]

I'm sure the near-constant belittling and general negative mood must have done wonders for the cause of the "complexity!" lovers who would see reversions or meaningless busywork tacked on to Summoner again for no reason as opposed to meaningful additions or near-universally agreed upon potential improvements-you have the right to advocate for it all you like. Fortunately with this many jobs I can easily bounce around to whatever isn't feeling horrible to play, much like I did during the state of Summoner during Shadowbringers.

If they decide to go backwards, I can move on to better things. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for certain old SMN mains. In regards to who I speak for and what I ultimately want, give me the missing summons whether as glam, gem summons, or demis and I'm good. I like the rework and if you can give me more things that feel good to do-fantastic. Do not give me random things to do that have nothing to do with the job I'm playing.

No wonder they threw the old job into the trash can and gave up on it, I cannot imagine how taxing it must be to beholden to certain style of gameplay that seems nearly impossible to get "perfect" and will inadvertently have faults found no matter what direction things go in. If I had to choose between building a job around casual/middle of the road players or the complexity crowd, I know which one will be easier to deal with. The additional difficulty you want is right there in Savage and Extreme, if you want intensity then there it is. If Savage and Extreme are too easy for you then I am sorry that the game cannot exclusively cater to the top 0.05% of players. As it stands now the likeliest addition is a Scouting melee and a physical Ranged dps, the caster role is unlikely to have new additions in the vein of old SMN until 8.0.

[Tulzscha]

I'm sorry but why should they be? Why should the best utility jobs be near the bottom? That's such an arbitrary reason, just as arbitrary as saying, the best mobility, or the easiest rotation, or the least amount of party synergy mechanics. And also is not one that's easily quantified. Reaper has great utility. Monk has solid utility. Hell I would say that both Black Mage and Samurai have more 'utility' then Machinist, yet if you were to suddenly put Machinist damage on par with theirs, I'm sure you get massive blow back from a good part of the community.

The community doesn't even agree on what makes up utility. Some say it's anything that contributes to buffing the damage, mitigation, or healing of others. Some say that damage shouldn't be included in that. Some say its bringing any ability that makes the job of others easier. Balancing around such a nebulous statistic only causes issues.

And also your question still doesn't address the problem of "What happens when the run doesnt need to be saved?" aka 90% of the time we play this game. After a few weeks, almost every piece of content in this game becomes trivial, save ultimate. When that utility means absolutely nothing, it should no longer be factored into balance.

I would say utility is any non-damage contribution that helps the group. Healing, rezzing, interrupts, mitigation, etc. Most damage buffs are included in rdps, saying they count as utility is just a different (and less clear) way of comparing rdps vs adps.

As for which jobs should be higher or lower, I'd look at it this way:

1. If two jobs have exactly the same potential output but one offers something the other doesn't, why would you play the job that offers nothing? Downplay it all you want an advantage is an advantage, even in a seasoned group people can screw up, having an extra rez is nice. Clearing a little faster is also nice, neither is that big of a deal for a good group, it's more a matter of preference.

How much having a rez should cost I can't say but it should cost something. Balance is most important for prog, afterwards when people have experience and better gear it doesn't matter as much who has a rez and who doesn't, nor does it matter as much who deals more damage, you're getting the clear regardless.

2. Same goes for ease of play. If two jobs have the same potential output but one can be executed with a single macro while running around as much as you like while the other requires the group working around you to make sure you're able to keep dpsing, fun factor aside there's no reason to play the difficult job and those who do because they enjoy it will likely end up discouraged.

Imo jobs should not be balanced around max potential for this reason, nor should they be balanced around the worst players as that will create too large of a disparity at the top. Finding that magic number where the most people are satisfied is the hard part.

3. Jobs that buff the group can only ever be as good as the whole group. Their max potential rdps is higher by nature but their lows are also lower, the more buff-centric the job the more their own rdps is out of their control.

SMNs offer a good amount of utility: Free healing for the group + a targeted heal every 2 minutes that doesn't come at the cost of dps, a decent self shield every 30s, and the ability to rez which only one other dps can do. They are extremely mobile and ranged with an incredibly straight-forward rotation that's almost impossible to mess up - it doesn't always do well with downtime but that's a design problem more than a numbers problem. And they have a raid buff. It makes sense to me that their adps would be among the lowest.

Their rdps is dependent on the group making good use of their buff which thanks to its long duration is not difficult to do resulting in less variance compared to Ninja for example which would result in SMN's max potential rdps being lower while their low end should be higher.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

snip

I see people say that sometimes, where utility is everything that is not dam related but here is the thing do we know for sure the dev balance around that definition of utility? Shoot I personally don't think they use rdps since that is technically a form of measurement that site that should not be named used. I might be wrong but didn't rdps start there in the first place? Just because you believe utility is not related to dam buffs doesn't mean the devs do, if so why is nin always near the bottom of the melee? What utility other than TA does it bring to a party that makes it have the lowest rdps among the melee. The point is if the utility doesn't include buffs like TA, AC, SL, Embolden, and ect then why is nin being taxed so hard compared to other melees who have more healing/mitigation utility like mnk and rpr?

Also on the smn healing utility show me an example everlasting flight or rekindle come useful in current fights that don't just lead to overhealing because they land during times the healing isn't necessarily? SMN so call utility is too depends on its rotation. You as the smn have no say in when or where to use it. Do you know what I can do as a rdm right now? Ask my healers when they want magick barrier, I can't do that for either everlasting flight or rekindle. So I wouldn't call smn's utility good XD

[dinnertime]

Both SMN and RDM are honestly in a weird spot when it comes to utility, because what they can provide can mostly be useless after the progression phase. They have the heals and the raising while the only thing that always remains relevant is the damage party buff.

And then the Raise 'issue'. Personally I'm on the side that thinks that DPS Raise is not as great of utility people make it out to be, especially with people on these forums. I still remember BLMs getting so upset over it lol. There's many disadvantages to Raising like costing so much MP (to be fair isn't much of an issue anymore), wasting a GCD to use it and having an extremely long cast time which is not a problem to RDM, but is a problem to SMN now because Swiftcast is pretty much integrated to your rotation.

While I admit there still needs to be more disasvantages like maybe getting a damage debuff from using it, but Raise is so niche that I really don't think RDM and SMN should be at the very bottom because of it.

Also the mobility argument again. Shadowbringers and Endwalker has made so many jobs mobile. Even BLM, the antithesis of mobility, is extremely mobile these days. Granted I haven't touched the current savage content to really be credible about this, I still don't think this argument holds much water anymore.