Summoner rework is a huge dissapointment

[Anvaire]

You can raid savage content and still be casual. Being casual is no insult, it's just a way of playing the game.
SMN plays itself, which fits a lot of checkmark for a casual job.

You don't need to invest a lot of time to reach the SMN skill ceiling.
To more experienced/invested players, it's disappointing that a job offers no resistance at all, nothing to learn.

I wouldn't say im "casual" as you put it. Nor would i take insult in it because it really doesnt matter. I do take umbridge at your insinuated im not "experienced or Invested" I've played this game since ARR beta, and ive done every single Savage bar current turn 4. Its not about being experience or invested. Its about preference, and i dont really find SMN unfun to play. It lacks options, it is limited but thats not the same as it being unfun. I think tbh, you are talking about those players who liked the plan and optimise last SMN's rotation and the new summoner not catering to the same things. But that style of gameplay in XIV has been dwindling since SHB. Summoner is simply the last in a long list to be adjusted and if im being honest, it is what it needed. Is the rework perfect? No, do i think its been designed for everyone? no. But I do think it has solved one of the design conflicts the previous summoner had and with a few adjustments could be a solid class. People in this game talk a lot about skill floor and ceiling, but lets be real, the difference between most jobs is not a great gap. The Job design philosophy has been to narrow all jobs so they sit in a similiar place. I will say that there isn't a great deal of skill needed for current summoner, but then, I dont think a great deal of skill is needed for BLM, or for Ninja. What is needed is a solid grasp of the job and the knowledge of how to bend its rotation to the peaks and troughs of a fight. People like to pretend some jobs in this game need a lot of effort to perfect, but the truth is, you just need to memorise the job compents and pull them all together. Not everyone is motivated to do that true. At the end of the day, it all boils down to muscle memory, and the tools used to play. But a job in FFXIV will never be designed to be so hard only a select few can do it. They are designed to be played by the majority with ease, and the improvements are found in the available optimisation. Current Summoner is not different in this regard, it is simply rigid and offers simplicity of choice, but even if it wasnt rigid, someone would mathmatically calculate the optimum route and the majority would follow. The truth is, most "hard core" just do what the recommendation is. Im not saying thats bad, I just think people should call a spade a spade and stop pretending its soemthing derrived from weeks of effort individually, when its actually a minute handfull of people who do the leg work and the rest just emulate.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Current Summoner is not different in this regard, it is simply rigid and offers simplicity of choice, but even if it wasnt rigid, someone would mathmatically calculate the optimum route and the majority would follow. The truth is, most "hard core" just do what the recommendation is. Im not saying thats bad, I just think people should call a spade a spade and stop pretending its soemthing derrived from weeks of effort individually, when its actually a minute handfull of people who do the leg work and the rest just emulate.

You are right in saying most ppl just follow a rotation/actions that others think out but here is the problem with smn and how its own brand of rigidness doesn't feel good compared to other jobs. You can't really make any small choice like holding your demi before downtime without hurting your dps. The biggest example of the one of smn's weaknesses is p2s where the boss becomes untargetable during a buff window. Everyone pretty much has agreed to hold their buffs till after the boss becomes targetable again and end turn also hold their bursts there also. SMN cant do both, smn can hold SL no problem but it cant hold its demi. You have to keep that CD rolling or lose out on a lot of DPS. This one small leak of a choice leads to an smn having to disjoint its own burst window from its own buff and other buffs. It's not fun, it doesn't feel good, and I can't think of any other job in the game that has that problem. It's not just p2s either, it's most fights with downtime that going to feel bad on smn. But a do agree with you all jobs in 14 arent super hard or complex, most of them can easily to learn and even be mastered with some practice(including BLM tho some ppl will say otherwise). My biggest complaint and issue with the new smn is that it feels incomplete and feels completely thrown together compared to other DPS jobs in 14 right now. Mnk got a decent rework, and rpr got everything and the kitchen sink. I just feel smn was overlooked and pushed out of the door, but that is just my own feelings.

[Aikaal]

and rpr got everything and the kitchen sink.

I,ve heard a lot of Reapers including the Reaper in my group not liking the job in raid. There's some issue with the Reaper that personally I've felt just leveling it. However, Reaper is in a good spot and that's the difference. SMN feels bad to play and is currently in a bad spot.

[HyperiusUltima]

You can't really make any small choice like holding your demi before downtime without hurting your dps. The biggest example of the one of smn's weaknesses is p2s where the boss becomes untargetable during a buff window. Everyone pretty much has agreed to hold their buffs till after the boss becomes targetable again and end turn also hold their bursts there also. SMN cant do both, smn can hold SL no problem but it cant hold its demi. You have to keep that CD rolling or lose out on a lot of DPS. This one small leak of a choice leads to an smn having to disjoint its own burst window from its own buff and other buffs. It's not fun, it doesn't feel good, and I can't think of any other job in the game that has that problem. It's not just p2s either, it's most fights with downtime that going to feel bad on smn.

I think there are improvements to be had with this job in general. The rework I'm alright with, but with it being extremely basic it feels like it's the antithesis of what BLM is. The biggest gripe that a majority of SMNs have is what you just said: Downtime during Demi CDs. I think it'd be a whole lot safer for SMN to be able to choose Phoenix or Bahamut given the facts:

A) Both Generate your Gems for Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan.
B) Both have the same general spell potencies with differences in abilities, with Phoenix being supportive and Bahamut being heavily offensive.

Having this choice would actually help SMN not suffer from this hard cycle they have to constantly do and fix some of the flow of the job to be more freeform in what SMN can do. Sure, this would be quite a buff given Bahamut could easily be in every minute you get your Demi back, but in hard healing situations for healers Phoenix could provide a helpful passive regen while constant damage is coming out(I'm looking at you, P3S). There's still the issue of our personal shield and buff being tied to Carbuncle, which I would wish to be decoupled since we already had this fight about pets tying us down because of potential ghosting. Being able to use your shield for incoming hits effectively boosts the effectiveness of the ability, but to limit it to Carbuncle just feels like it's trying to shoehorn you into the pet system they still have.

[Zarkovitch]

They need to make carbuncle a thing who appears few secs and vanish like some sort of esteem or make it turret mode and do nothing use his abilities whenever I summon things. I hate to see my pet vanish whenever i put him somewhere and reappeared close to me due to summon titan,ifrit,garuda,bahamut,phoenix. I cannot use is abilities because there a other pet summoning. It really bad design. Carbuncle should be low level to pet to use abilities. End of story.

[Grimoire-M]

They need to make carbuncle a thing who appears few secs and vanish like some sort of esteem or make it turret mode and do nothing use his abilities whenever I summon things. I hate to see my pet vanish whenever i put him somewhere and reappeared close to me due to summon titan,ifrit,garuda,bahamut,phoenix. I cannot use is abilities because there a other pet summoning. It really bad design. Carbuncle should be low level to pet to use abilities. End of story.

This is the primary point I’ve wanted people to understand since the reveal but I understand that when I put the wall of text explaining why that’s the case people don’t think I’m sane.

Still gonna do it though.

Yes. The Resummons are Bad. And make everything else in the rotation worse. It’s not the fault of SE’s animation work, it’s literally an engine problem that cannot be solved. And it’s not because pet AI sucks. Spawning new entities and then removing them constantly is going to cause netcode problems and eats up time that could be spent utilizing the pets themselves. Which is why they feel like they show up from nowhere and do nothing even when you summoned them. Because it happens too late to even register properly.

The only broad point solution to this that I can see being reasonable is making Summons appear as part of Carbuncle and/or the player’s spell animations themselves.

The only other caveat I’d add to that is SE should make it feel like we are casting these avatars. Whether that’s through actual cast times (Titan specifically, but any really), TCJ/Flamethrower (Garuda’s Slipstream comes to mind here), or forced movement (Ifrit Charges). Force us to stand still to use them so there’s less of a disconnect between our input and their output and it feels like an actual mage instead of a ranged DPS.

This is also why I want to Summon them less, too. I want them to be meaningful when we use them, not use them all the time. The track they took was rushed and off, and I can wait till 7.0 to see them fix it.

[rewd]

This is the primary point I’ve wanted people to understand since the reveal but I understand that when I put the wall of text explaining why that’s the case people don’t think I’m sane.

Still gonna do it though.

Yes. The Resummons are Bad. And make everything else in the rotation worse. It’s not the fault of SE’s animation work, it’s literally an engine problem that cannot be solved. And it’s not because pet AI sucks. Spawning new entities and then removing them constantly is going to cause netcode problems and eats up time that could be spent utilizing the pets themselves. Which is why they feel like they show up from nowhere and do nothing even when you summoned them. Because it happens too late to even register properly.

The only broad point solution to this that I can see being reasonable is making Summons appear as part of Carbuncle and/or the player’s spell animations themselves.

The only other caveat I’d add to that is SE should make it feel like we are casting these avatars. Whether that’s through actual cast times (Titan specifically, but any really), TCJ/Flamethrower (Garuda’s Slipstream comes to mind here), or forced movement (Ifrit Charges). Force us to stand still to use them so there’s less of a disconnect between our input and their output and it feels like an actual mage instead of a ranged DPS.

This is also why I want to Summon them less, too. I want them to be meaningful when we use them, not use them all the time. The track they took was rushed and off, and I can wait till 7.0 to see them fix it.

Needing a cast time to summon Carbuncle but being able to instantly summon Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Bahamut and Phoenix looks quite silly.

[ty_taurus]

I feel like the frequency and style of how we summon during the rotation would be completely fine if Carbuncle didn't dismiss during other summons. I definitely sympathize with the struggles of having to work around some problematic code from the past, but I would really love to listen one of the devs talk about it a little bit and why it is the way it is out of my own curiosity and if it's something that's even feasible to work on. I do think we may cross a bridge one day where they will spend the time and money to rework some of that baseline code to better improve how job elements can be implemented, though I imagine that might come after the graphical update is finished completely.

I've said this before a while back, but I feel like SMN is good fertile land. It's not as developed as it really should've been, but it has a lot of room to grow and feels far more cohesive in concept than it did before. I definitely sympathize with SMN mains who feel that they are working with an incomplete job for the next 2 years, and that's my biggest gripe, but I do hope the future will have it develop into something much stronger in design. That may not justify the changes as we got them, but it is what we can look for when the damage has been done.

[rewd]

I feel like the frequency and style of how we summon during the rotation would be completely fine if Carbuncle didn't dismiss during other summons. I definitely sympathize with the struggles of having to work around some problematic code from the past, but I would really love to listen one of the devs talk about it a little bit and why it is the way it is out of my own curiosity and if it's something that's even feasible to work on. I do think we may cross a bridge one day where they will spend the time and money to rework some of that baseline code to better improve how job elements can be implemented, though I imagine that might come after the graphical update is finished completely.

I've said this before a while back, but I feel like SMN is good fertile land. It's not as developed as it really should've been, but it has a lot of room to grow and feels far more cohesive in concept than it did before. I definitely sympathize with SMN mains who feel that they are working with an incomplete job for the next 2 years, and that's my biggest gripe, but I do hope the future will have it develop into something much stronger in design. That may not justify the changes as we got them, but it is what we can look for when the damage has been done.

Nearly half of the existing jobs during 5.X were "good fertile land", yet the devs did nothing with them. SMN also isn't exactly good fertile land gameplay-wise, it is a mess for various reasons.

The job simply doesn't have a real job mechanic at the moment. You can't slap a new mechanic at level 92 because then you are only exacerbating the issue people had with old SMN which introduced demis as late as level 70. Aetherflow+Ruin IV also need to be scrapped or reworked entirely, so they actually have a purpose in SMN's kit. The devs designed themselves into a corner with this rework, as the job is far more strict and rigid than it may seems at first glance.

When you need to rework your rework, the job you did can hardly be considered "good fertile land".

[Sequora]

I’m not disagreeing with every point, but summoner is more popular than it’s ever been lol. It’s still the most popular caster 3 months since the launch of endwalker.