Summoner rework is a huge dissapointment

[Aikaal]

At the end some of are happy and some are not. For majority of main smners, none of them would have taken this deal if it meant falling lower in output. This was bad class design; you alienated a portion of the actual player base that played smner to appease a majority of players that didn't main smner. The right way would have been to keep the class contribution the same and add complexity to justify it. No one asked at any time to become the caster equivalent of a physical range class.

If... by happy, it's all the casuals that don't raid. Yeah, sure. SMN is so unfun during raid that it's unplayable lol. Removing some of the issues would already make the job more interesting. Right now, not only SMN is at the worst spot. It is the most unfun caster in raid.

[Imoen]

If... by happy, it's all the casuals that don't raid. Yeah, sure.

I don't raid anymore, mostly because I had to move to an area with crappy net, so I don't want to put other players through that. I'm too lazy to spend time finding a tolerant group to deal with my latency spikes and packet loss, I would love to again though. Some day /sigh.

Anyway, even some of us that don't raid anymore are feeling the burn too. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to main this xpac since SMN was kind of my thing, so I'm still playing it currently, but ya...

[Tatano]

I've been raiding a little with smn recently and tbh I've found it quite awkward to use. The way that ifrit, garuda, and titan work makes it so that smn doesn't really have a flow as they each have their own spell speed (basically with garuda having space to only weave once and ifrit having long casts) while also only lasting for short periods. Ifrit is definitely the worst of the three as it includes a gap closer melee combo meaning you can't be at range during that phase.

Another complaint I have is that summons are just lame now. This is because you now summon so many of them constantly and they're so big you pretty much have to set their size to small. This makes it feel like I'm not even summoning anything as they're just not noticable. In shb the demis were at least spaced out so they weren't too much of a problem. Having only two also made them feel important and impactful.

Anyway I have more complaints but I'll end it here for now.

[Corbeau]

I disagree with everything in the above post. In particular, the summons absolutely do not need to be more homogenous.

[dinnertime]

Ifrit Phase would honestly feel better if SMN's gameplay weren't 97% instant cast. It's out of place with the rest of its kit.
SMN had a lot of mobility even back then, but not at these tremendous levels. It felt more rewarding working around fights with the plenty but still limited mobility that you do have.

Also the low power doesn't really justify the long cast time Ifrit Phase offers.

[Claviusnex]

Ifrit Phase would honestly feel better if SMN's gameplay weren't 97% instant cast. It's out of place with the rest of its kit.
SMN had a lot of mobility even back then, but not at these tremendous levels. It felt more rewarding working around fights with the plenty but still limited mobility that you do have.

Also the low power doesn't really justify the long cast time Ifrit Phase offers.

I've only been back for a few weeks and in general like the changes to SMN but I agree Ilfrit feels clunky and out of place. I think the melee attack is ok and I've found it useful for getting clear of AoE's but the casting time for Gemshine/Precious Brilliance throws everything off. I think the idea was to have Garuda fast casts, Titan medium and Ilfrit long but it would be better if rather than a long cast time for Ilfrit that they use a longer cooldown. This would allow some weaving of OGCD actions to offset for the lower dps and make the actions flow better.

[Ayden]

In 5.x SMN could use Egi-assault1, Egi-assault2, Ruin IV, Ruin 2 on demand for mobility.



If players are asking for more hard casts without changing current playstyle in 6.x, SE would need to compensate us some mobility tools that we can use on demand. Otherwise how else do you move for mechanics.

[Tulzscha]

In 5.x SMN could use Egi-assault1, Egi-assault2, Ruin IV, Ruin 2 on demand for mobility.



If players are asking for more hard casts without changing current playstyle in 6.x, SE would need to compensate us some mobility tools that we can use on demand. Otherwise how else do you move for mechanics.

Kids these days and their endless mobility, so spoiled. :P But yeah they could do some cool things with SMN mobility. Some random ideas:

1. A morphing ability for mobility that's different depending on your current summon, like Ifrit's charge. Relying on dashes/teleports is a lot like BLM though.

2. An ability to swap places with Carbuncle + maybe make Carby's positioning matter more. This I think would be super fun and unique but Carby isn't always available. Unless it's made to be always available.

3. Have a casted spell for each summon that can be used without limit with instants that can be used a limited number of times via attunement or a shared resource between summons, or are simply weaker like Ruin 2.

4. Allow summons to be used for different amounts of time (rather than being completely tied to attunement and favor) with bigger differences in mobility for each, leaning harder into the current design but with more weight in the player's choice of summon

[Aikaal]

The worst part about Ifrit isn't the cast bars. It's the fact it's a caveat phase compared to Titan as it deals less damage than Titan and has cast times compared to Titan. That literally doesn't make sense in a gameplay perspective.

[Jirah]

Been playing SMN and I think it’s one of the best examples of “giving up half way through a rework” second only to MCH which isn’t that bad compared which is saying a lot coming from me

Worries me how much bloat it has, Gemshine makes no sense and could’ve just reformed Ruin III into the Gemshine skills than having its own button to do so. Ruin IV makes no sense and should’ve either been a GCD like flèche if it’s that inconsequential, or have it upgrade from Fester which itself doesn’t make sense why have 2 stacks of a skill that has no cooldown and does equal power to ruin III than having it on 2 short CD. Why have energy drain at all if it’s only for a skill we don’t need to care about that we can only do for 60 long as hell seconds to break the Gemshine, astral flow back and forth.

Also huge point here, why the hell does arcanist at 30 play way way too similarly to SMN at 90 (yes it doesn’t have a lot of the eye candy and the favors) it’s like the job got the basics down but did nothing for 40 levels but add more buttons not for nuisance sake but just a distraction, and the selling point being it looks pretty or “it’s not a poison mage” baffles me as counterpoints. Some Jobs at 50 play more fun than SMN at 90