Summoner rework is a huge dissapointment

[Zarkovitch]

The smn challenge is what to press for uptime no matter what. Sure there be time where the rotation is stale but guess what all jobs have stale rotation(except those proc jobs rng). Like exemple, on p3s whenever there a line for which tornado kb it better to use ifrit after the phoenix is done for uptime sake. If decide to use him at last you be stuck losing gcds because the next mech might be not a stack and gotta move you already use all insta gcd skills. So yeah there a lot to think to how to do it. Smn playstyle is to think whats is good for your uptime cast. I really enjoy the job even there some flaws. Such as ifrit being the lowest dps,radius of the buff and ghosting.

[Grimoire-M]

The smn challenge is what to press for uptime no matter what. Sure there be time where the rotation is stale but guess what all jobs have stale rotation(except those proc jobs rng). Like exemple, on p3s whenever there a line for which tornado kb it better to use ifrit after the phoenix is done for uptime sake. If decide to use him at last you be stuck losing gcds because the next mech might be not a stack and gotta move you already use all insta gcd skills. So yeah there a lot to think to how to do it. Smn playstyle is to think whats is good for your uptime cast. I really enjoy the job even there some flaws. Such as ifrit being the lowest dps,radius of the buff and ghosting.

Every single other job does more than Summoner does in that respect. Even healers. Even if you removed their heals.

[Zarkovitch]

Every single other job does more than Summoner does in that respect. Even healers. Even if you removed their heals.

What do you mean by that I may ask?

[Grimoire-M]

What do you mean by that I may ask?

Assuming every class is at max level, without factoring in any specific encounter (because all of them break every class in different ways), just trying to execute your rotation against what could happen, assuming no use of safety valves outside your own role's expected capabilities (aka no unique utility, ignore caster res), while maximizing dps.

Melee Uptime: All Tanks, All melee DPS, RDM
Active Combo Management: See above, plus MCH and DNC. RDM qualifies due to Doublecast.
Caster Uptime: All Healers, BLM, RDM
Proc Management: DNC, BRD, RDM
High Cooldown Management (high number of independent cooldowns, ideally multiple below 30s): Pretty much every job except Monk, Red Mage, and Summoner can qualify for this, and I'm ignoring relevant role actions in that.
High Decision Making (Taken as the average number of meaningful decisions you can make on a per GCD basis): Healers (every cooldown) > BLM (Yes, unironically) > Tanks > Monk/RDM > Everyone else > Healers (DPS only) > Summoner

Obviously, there are gradients in that, and I'll acknowledge that.

However, Summoner is at the lowest end possible for that scale.

Summoner is the easiest job in the game because it lost everything that made it require active attention in Endwalker. You have three and a half decision points per minute. Most are based on what you might need in the next 12 seconds, and it has negligible amounts of caster/melee uptime compared to RDM, nevermind actual classes that care about both. Even among its closest competitors in difficulty (Ranged DPS), all of them have more to think about! And the healers, for all their barebones rotation, have to actually find time to stand still, something that actually takes a fair amount of practice in higher-end content.

Every job is trying to maximize uptime. In terms of barriers to entry on that, no one has it as easy as Summoner does, not even the ranged DPS. That's why Summoner is in the trash compactor right now.

[Oextra]

There’s no strategy in how the bardsong buffs themselves work so it wouldn’t change your priorities. Bard does have strategic concerns with its personal DPS effects from their songs but that’s purely from repertoire. The way those buffs are tuned on Bard would be how they’re given to us on Summoner and it would be equally if not more lacklustre as a result.

Sure if that's how it was with Bard and they did that same thing with summoner, you'd be right. However you don't know what they would do if they chose to implement this idea. No one does....

[Flana]

I've always been vocal on how poor I thought the direction for Summoner has been going since Stormblood, but Endwalker is what finally made me drop the class entirely. Squeenix gave themselves a complete rework of the job from the ground up and somehow only managed to fix the most surface level problem (thematics). In fact they made the mechanical problems that already exist even worse! Unless you roleplay a melee sub-90 ghosting is the worst its ever been because Ifrit and Titan have to physically walk up to their target to enkindle, and if that dies good luck with them swapping to a new target. Yeah you can roleplay a melee with unlimited instants but why is this even a problem in the first place? This can still happen even after 90, I had it happen in Atiascope and during the crystal phase of EX2 where they just stood around because the target died and didn't bother swapping to a new target before despawning.

Demi summons killing carbuncle have a knock-on effect of making the defensive a total pain to use and can still cause neu-Devotion to either ghost or completely desync from raid buffs because you can't use it when Carbuncle is dead, which it is for nearly half your rotation because of Demi summoning. Demi AI can still freak out and randomly follow you wasting autos, and while the issue is significantly reduced it still happens. This rework didn't actually fix anything, and that's ignoring how boring it feels to play. Ironically outside of Titan the job feels painfully slow because you have a ton of instant GCDs but basically nothing to fill them with. Demi phases also feel extremely lackluster due to being 1 gcd spamfests. At least the old FBT had a 1-2 cadence to it, even if it was simplistic.

I don't even consider this a good starting point because the job has a rigid cycle already with 1 free gcd. While it desperately needs something to fill in all the dead time you can't just load all the instants in 90-w/e the new cap is two years from now. Replacing the entire gem cycle defeats the point of making it a good 'starting point' because you just threw out the thing you were supposed to build on (and doesn't fix the old gem cycle's problems if they remain after either Demi phase). That's also ignoring how Reaper and Sage are complete out of the gate and very fun to play. They don't need to wait 2 years for an expansion to fix the problem, so Summoner shouldn't have to either.

And yes, I am extremely bitter they removed the DoT caster (even if the DoTs did literally nothing to the rotation and were trivially easy to maintain starting in Stormblood) while adding nothing to replace the missing niche. I fell in love with Summoner back when I started playing in Heavensward because the DoT playstyle, and every expansion has taken that away without adding anything to replace it. Give me a dot mage SE.

To say I am very disappointed with this rework is putting it mildly. But at least it looks cool, I guess. Silver linings and all that. Maybe 6.1 will do something but I doubt it will be more than potency buffs to quiet the complaining.

[Grimoire-M]

Sure if that's how it was with Bard and they did that same thing with summoner, you'd be right. However you don't know what they would do if they chose to implement this idea. No one does....

I’ve been calling out problems with Summoner and SE’s general design on other classes since HW. Mainly focusing on how minimal their changes really are in light of reasonably clear feedback. Even predicting the job was dead on the reveal. And I was right.

Bardsongs are the accurate comparison because SE has no time nor regard for anything more interesting. Hence why I shoot down such thoughtless rehashes in the first place. We’ve seen what they’ll do so don’t bother. We’re trying to get them to do both GOOD and NEW changes. Any suggestions I’ve ever made using the constraint of only pulling up old assets still employ them in creative and different ways. Your concept is too narrow for that to work.

[Anvaire]

I’ve been calling out problems with Summoner and SE’s general design on other classes since HW. Mainly focusing on how minimal their changes really are in light of reasonably clear feedback. Even predicting the job was dead on the reveal. And I was right.

Bardsongs are the accurate comparison because SE has no time nor regard for anything more interesting. Hence why I shoot down such thoughtless rehashes in the first place. We’ve seen what they’ll do so don’t bother. We’re trying to get them to do both GOOD and NEW changes. Any suggestions I’ve ever made using the constraint of only pulling up old assets still employ them in creative and different ways. Your concept is too narrow for that to work.

I think its a pretty big stretch to say the job is "dead on arrival" there are a lot of people who still play it after all. To say that the current design has flaws which have caused a drop in player uptake when compared to pre-EW SMN would be more accurate.

[MrJPtheAssassin]

Yeah calling the smn rework DOA isn't really true and it is a stretch. People are playing it and it is popular among the player base. That, in turn, is what Im worried about because it's popular and the numbers/stats show ppl are playing it, then that gives the devs the excuse not to touch it for 2 years... They can easily tell us that "Well since the people are playing smn and it's like the 4th most played job then the rework must be a success and we really don't need to make any big changes in how it plays." I much rather smn be DOA bc that would push the devs to make huge changes in 6.1 and talk about smn in the LLs but since they haven't really even mentioned smn by name at all so far my hopes for anything are so low. I personally think the caster role is the most unbalanced role this expac because of how smn is. It's a worst rdm in its current state... I'm praying for a new caster in 7.0 so I have another option. Right now I don't like BLM, I'm meh on rdm, and smn (my main for 2 expac) is a huge disappointment. I don't have anything to really play in the caster role and that is the role I fill for my static. This tier has been the worst for me bc I have no job of the 3 to fall back on :-/

[Sequora]

Any chance they’ll talk about summoner during the live letter? They didn’t mention it in their last letter, so it’s doubtful.