Summoner rework is a huge dissapointment

[Raikai]

Theme wise, I really like SMN rework... However the execution leaves to be desired. I really like the direction in removing the dots, as it would be conflicting with a new cohesive system - that actually happened with the gemstones - however the big issue is the lack of depth.

The primals should have more actions to interact with the time they are out. They seem to have a liking to make SMN a non orthodox caster with combos, so why not go through with it? Make Ruin 3 turn into something else that interacts with the other actions. If needed they could add a few more seconds with each primal and raise the Demi cooldowns to make it fit. edit: on a second thought, this last idea may cause mis-alignment of the 2min buffs... but still I think is possible to add more interactability with the timeframe we have.

Phoenix is too similar to Bahamut. They could go all the way with fountain of fire having a cast time to make it more distinct. Either that or approach Phoenix with combo actions.

Does Fester even make sense thematically (especially when we don't have dots anymore to 'fester' on)? It would be great if that was actually an ogcd that changed in form and usability depending on the phase where you use it, to further promote interactions and thought about when to use it. Ruin 4 could follow a similar logic... And there you have it, a lot of conditional actions that would promote complexity and decision making for when to use and in which phase.

Radiant Aegis should (like Searing Light had) be removed from the Carbuncle and set on the summoner themselves. It is a MAJOR hassle to use, given the carby is half of the time out. Yes it lasts for 30s and you can sort of plan ahead, but wouldn't be nice to actually have a defensive utility available whenever you mess up? Like all other defensive utilities in the game? To me it just feels like a handicap for no good reason.

The pet is also an issue... It does nothing and often is not even facing the fight. I think it would be cool if it acted as a counterpart of the Fairy and simply auto attacked or had spell casts. It would count as a marginal constant source of damage, just like the Fairy is a marginal source of free healing with Embrace, and visually it would mean the world to see the companion actually engaged in the fight.

Physick not scaling with Int for zero good reason.

[CasterSvarog]

So i've been spending the past few days in a vain attempt at 'reworking' Summoner in a way I wish they would have done instead of what we currently got.
The general base line was a slightly modified ShB Summoner with multiple changes to help reduce pet jank as much as possible, making the job feel like a Caster should, alongside giving the job more depth that current summoner doesn't have, and help fix the rigidness the job suffers from by giving more room to breath with it's gcd.

Just please keep in mind that potency values are nowhere close to what they would actually be in practice, but they exist as a general framework that tries to show off the idea and because I just don’t have the time to do the calculations myself at the current moment. If the numbers are off, my apologies and let me know. It's definitely not perfect, but I quite like how it turned out.

Version 1.2:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...-vLNPRb7E/edit

This idea got some more reworks adding in the arcanium system of Endwalkers Summoner instead of just summoning the Egi/Carbuncle of choice. Otherwise not to much has changed outside of potencies, leveling times and cooldown timers. Definitely still needs more tweaking but I think it’s a vastly superior starting point

Older ideas:

Version 1.1:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Version 1:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Edit: So the image quality looks awful on mobile browsers, I have no idea how to fix it, but it works on desktop and on desktop view on mobile.

[Dyvid]

And yet we still have a ~2.5 second delay on pushing the gem summon button and damage actually going out. They really didn't fix anything, did they? Same problems new paint.

Considering you are talking about a completely different issue all together, yea it did. The problem you are pointing out is that damage happens at the end of the action animation regardless of which job does it.

[Flana]

Considering you are talking about a completely different issue all together, yea it did. The problem you are pointing out is that damage happens at the end of the action animation regardless of which job does it.

It's still the same problem. You push a button and nothing happens because your pet can't execute the command for an arbitrary amount of time. It even still has the lovely problem of potentially losing your pet command if the target happens to die or jump during the ridiculous forced animation. If they actually fixed the problem damage would apply instantly (like literally any other job with an instant gcd) and there would be a 0% chance of lost actions (also like literally any other job).

Instead they took the thing everyone hated (pet action delay) and just made it a core component of the class. Depending on how you look at it they may have made it worse, since Egi actions could sometimes be executed near instantly depending on the AI and the phase of the moon combined with your horoscope. Now gem summons just always have a roughly 3 second delay on their attacks. Progress!

So i've been spending the past few days in a vain attempt at 'reworking' Summoner in a way I wish they would have done instead of what we currently got.
The general base line was a slightly modified ShB Summoner with multiple changes to help reduce pet jank as much as possible, making the job feel like a Caster should, alongside giving the job more depth that current summoner doesn't have, and help fix the rigidness the job suffers from by giving more room to breath with it's gcd.

Just please keep in mind that potency values are nowhere close to what they would actually be in practice, but they exist as a general framework that tries to show off the idea and because I just don’t have the time to do the calculations myself at the current moment. If the numbers are off, my apologies and let me know. It's definitely not perfect, but I quite like how it turned out.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

So the first thing that's not clear is, are you still cycling summons in this? Because it doesn't seem like it, but if you aren't then why keep the random 2 charges for Fire attunement? Those 2 casts will have to have massive potencies to compensate for losing out on the other 2 enhanced abilities from the other summons. Also, as glad as I would be to have my DoTs back, this doesn't solve the old problem of them being fairly divorced from the kit itself (at least as far as I could see). You have old Fester and Bane, which only react to the DoTs being on the target. They don't actually do anything themselves or open up any kind of gameplay beyond sitting on the target and making sure you don't fail the IQ check on Fester. It's not engaging.

The other problem is keeping Demi summons when you have pet actions existing. They can not coexist in the game's engine, the forced swap of the pet being replaced by the Demi (and then it dying after timing out) is the root cause of ghosting. If the pet can do anything it's a failure point where the job can just break and stop functioning as intended. If you want to tackle the issue of ghosting abilities then either Demi summoning or egis as a mechanic have to go, otherwise you're never going to completely solve it.

I'm also really not a fan of Shadowflare costing 2 Aetherflow stacks, because you're just compressing ogcds and leaving the job with less to do every couple of minutes. Pushing buttons in fun, and 'losing' an ogcd just makes that cycle a little less engaging. I would also strongly advise you against too many large ground effects (Shadowflare, Titan Enkindle, and Garuda has 2), because too many of these can actually make other ground effects (like the orange warning circles) not render in. It was a big problem in Baldesian Arsenal if you had too many Summoners in the raid back in Stormblood. Speaking of, I'm not really a fan of the Titan enkindle because it's effectively running opposite to what you want it to be. Since it's a ground effect where you're standing you have to stand still and just eat unneeded damage when the instant abilities and later damage reduction mean you should be very mobile and reducing the damage you can't avoid.

That said I do like your attempt to diversify the three egis. Ifrit getting Nail is a fun idea reminiscent of old Dreadwyrm Trance where you have a damage increasing phase in the rotation. Titan returning to a defensive pet is nice for niche content like lowman/solo Deep Dungeon or Exploratory content, although it does feel like it takes too long for that to come online. Having something defensive earlier can help solidify that niche. With a little more work tying the various parts together I think you'll have a solid concept.

[MellowMink]

I don’t like that I still can’t set my Level 90 summons to be carbuncles; you actually lose customization options once you reach the highest level, which is quite perplexing to me.

[CasterSvarog]

So the first thing that's not clear is, are you still cycling summons in this? Because it doesn't seem like it, but if you aren't then why keep the random 2 charges for Fire attunement? Those 2 casts will have to have massive potencies to compensate for losing out on the other 2 enhanced abilities from the other summons. Also, as glad as I would be to have my DoTs back, this doesn't solve the old problem of them being fairly divorced from the kit itself (at least as far as I could see). You have old Fester and Bane, which only react to the DoTs being on the target. They don't actually do anything themselves or open up any kind of gameplay beyond sitting on the target and making sure you don't fail the IQ check on Fester. It's not engaging.

Sorry for not making this clear enough, but it's more closer to previous expansions, you pick one Egi to summon at the start and build from there. As for the Dots, I personally just like them, it helps set up a basic skill floor in the early levels as something to work on during the early rotations. But true, there is a bit of a disconnect, perhaps introducing some sort of proc system, or a new machanic tying in dots and summons.
Also, i'll fix that mistake with Ruby charges, that was a dumb error.

Edit: Actually, how about having buffed Festers give a stack of Ifrit/Titan/Garuda Favor. Would help tie in the dot/Aetherflow system together.

The other problem is keeping Demi summons when you have pet actions existing. They can not coexist in the game's engine, the forced swap of the pet being replaced by the Demi (and then it dying after timing out) is the root cause of ghosting. If the pet can do anything it's a failure point where the job can just break and stop functioning as intended. If you want to tackle the issue of ghosting abilities then either Demi summoning or egis as a mechanic have to go, otherwise you're never going to completely solve it.

This one was the toughest part to figure out, hence having no auto attacks on the Egi's, being set to Stay by default when they are attacking, and having their attacks, assaults and enkindles be ranged, preventing the Ai from going "I need to be moving then attacking", instead going straight to "I'm attacking now". So in a hypothetical opener it would work like:
Ruin 3 [Aetherflow/egi attacks] -> Egi assault 1 [Devotion/egi assaults] [Disaster] -> Egi assault II [Shadowflare/egi assaults II] [Astral Flow] -> Enkindle [Egi Enkindles] -> Ruin 3 [Dreadwyrm trance]
Though thinking about, Dreadwyrm trance could also be turned into a Gcd to help with this problem, but i'm not 100% sure if that's a good idea for not.

I'm also really not a fan of Shadowflare costing 2 Aetherflow stacks, because you're just compressing ogcds and leaving the job with less to do every couple of minutes. Pushing buttons in fun, and 'losing' an ogcd just makes that cycle a little less engaging. I would also strongly advise you against too many large ground effects (Shadowflare, Titan Enkindle, and Garuda has 2), because too many of these can actually make other ground effects (like the orange warning circles) not render in. It was a big problem in Baldesian Arsenal if you had too many Summoners in the raid back in Stormblood. Speaking of, I'm not really a fan of the Titan enkindle because it's effectively running opposite to what you want it to be. Since it's a ground effect where you're standing you have to stand still and just eat unneeded damage when the instant abilities and later damage reduction mean you should be very mobile and reducing the damage you can't avoid.

The idea behind Shadowflare was an attempt to help cut back on oGcds during the 2 minute reopener by swapping out 2 Festers for a lone Shadowflare, thought taking a look at a hypothetical opener, Shadowflare isn't even needed. I was, however, not aware that too many ground effects can cause those kinds of issues, If that's the case then a lot of puddles will be removed and added to the potency. As for Titans Enkindle, I failed to fix where the puddle was supposed to appear, it was gonna be done at the target not the caster themselves.

That said I do like your attempt to diversify the three egis. Ifrit getting Nail is a fun idea reminiscent of old Dreadwyrm Trance where you have a damage increasing phase in the rotation. Titan returning to a defensive pet is nice for niche content like lowman/solo Deep Dungeon or Exploratory content, although it does feel like it takes too long for that to come online. Having something defensive earlier can help solidify that niche. With a little more work tying the various parts together I think you'll have a solid concept.

Thank you, I thought it was a pretty unique way of making the three summons stand out the most, perhaps giving Astral flow at level 52 would be a decent level to get their effects or maybe in ARR leveling, though it's tough to say where.

[Axxion]

and that was the main reason why the current smn failed to keep the original audience not enough time and resources (aka a dedicated caster dev making the class) hopefully with them adding more people to the team that also involves more class developers instead of just like 4(non of them are casters or healers)?

We shall see. because as right now, i don't see them changing it for a while.

Completely disagree with OP. Summoner was my "main alt" after White Mage since ARR in 2014 when I joined the game, and the current iteration of Summoner is the most fun I've ever had on the class. In fact for the first time my SMN is more geared than my WHM and I play it way more. The rotation is fun and interesting to me, and I finally feel bad-ass. Only complaint is that I sometimes can't see mechanics due to my summons but not willing to make them smaller

Hope the devs ignore most of these "summoner rework" ideas. I see others on the class regularly in raid content so it seems others enjoy it as well.

The problem I'm having with this statement is you are telling them not to listen the players that played it since aar until now? Any feedback is for class is always warranted. For me once again, i took the time to learn my class for years just to have it stripped down to being bar bones. I don't like my time being wasted for learning something.

Yes its fun that you can smn the primals but they have been there for years. From what i recall smn players wanted more summons, more glamour's. But nothing happened. its about to reach its "breaking point" .

[Nizzi]

The problem im having with this statement is you are telling them not to listen the players that played it since aar until now? Any feedback is for class is always warranted.

A lot of people in this great community are like this. "I hope the developers never listen to you haha!" Selfish people who only care about their own personal enjoyment and get pleasure in others misery.

[Axxion]

A lot of people in this great community are like this. "I hope the developers never listen to you haha!" Selfish people who only care about their own personal enjoyment and get pleasure in others misery.

Which i don't understand. dont have to be

[Flana]

I'm going to put my replies in a spoiler tag (or at least attempt to) just to keep from making an enormous post blocking people from scrolling through.

Sorry for not making this clear enough, but it's more closer to previous expansions, you pick one Egi to summon at the start and build from there. As for the Dots, I personally just like them, it helps set up a basic skill floor in the early levels as something to work on during the early rotations. But true, there is a bit of a disconnect, perhaps introducing some sort of proc system, or a new machanic tying in dots and summons.
Also, i'll fix that mistake with Ruby charges, that was a dumb error.

Edit: Actually, how about having buffed Festers give a stack of Ifrit/Titan/Garuda Favor. Would help tie in the dot/Aetherflow system together.

That may work, but then you're running the risk of pushing Fester out of the raid burst window if the upgrade to Fire Ruins is too large over normal DWT-buffed Ruins, since you would be effectively losing a stack for every Fester you use in your Trances. If you had a sort of intermediary buff that converted to elemental stacks when you use the Egi ability, that could get around feeling like you're 'losing out' on Festers during raid buffs.

As for abilities to tie DoTs into the job, you have a lot of options. Old Garuda had Contagion, which was very flavorful +15s extension to your buffs. You can use this to get more ticks out of your raid buff DoTs, although a 15s extension might make reapplication a little weird in the rotation if you end up 'cutting' 15s off. I'd have to make a full timeline to see if it would work well as an option for flat 30s duration dots.

Procs are a good way to make DoTs have an impact on your rotation, although then you're at the mercy of RNG if you don't have a way to force the proc. Procs also open up interesting ways to interact with your own abilities. You could have Ruin IV procs as a baseline, or something like a separate Gemshine button that are augmented by procs so you can bank up something different in case you need to adjust your gameplay. I would also suggest looking at how other games do DoT jobs, as you might find new ideas or mechanics that can used to strengthen your concept. One example is in games where reapplication is easy (similar to old SMN with Tri-Disaster resets) there are abilities to consume your DoT effects on a target to do upfront damage. Even without it being a core mechanic, it could be a niche ability to use for boss jumping. Try and think of ways to get them really into the kit working together and tying all the mechanics together.

This one was the toughest part to figure out, hence having no auto attacks on the Egi's, being set to Stay by default when they are attacking, and having their attacks, assaults and enkindles be ranged, preventing the Ai from going "I need to be moving then attacking", instead going straight to "I'm attacking now". So in a hypothetical opener it would work like:
Ruin 3 [Aetherflow/egi attacks] -> Egi assault 1 [Devotion/egi assaults] [Disaster] -> Egi assault II [Shadowflare/egi assaults II] [Astral Flow] -> Enkindle [Egi Enkindles] -> Ruin 3 [Dreadwyrm trance]
Though thinking about, Dreadwyrm trance could also be turned into a Gcd to help with this problem, but i'm not 100% sure if that's a good idea for not.

The problem with this is that the pet AI can't even handle standing still sometimes. Currently Carbuncle does absolutely nothing and there is still a noticeable amount of delay between your buttons being pushed and the action being executed, even if you're standing completely still. As long as this delay exists, demi summoning will continue to cause ghosting problems because it acts as a hard cut in the pets ability to perform those actions. I've said this since Stormblood, but Demi summoning was a mistake that is incompatible with the way the job is designed. Visually flashy? Certainly, but it turns pet action delay into hard failure points since the game is (evidently) designed to only be able to support one pet active at a time. Demi AI is also still broken and can refuse to lock on if you're moving when the summon action is pressed, which means you lose autos unless you stop moving long enough for them to reacquire a lock (not feasible in all content, since mechanics will overlap your 60s windows, or you're kiting in solo modes) or you force them to acquire a lock with an instance of damage (in my experience oGCD damage on the summon GCD results in a lock 100% of the time).

The fact that this still hasn't been fixed may indicate that is a systematic problem with the way the engine handles the pet spawning in. Maybe having damage tied to the summon itself could fix it, but that's such a blatantly obvious solution I can't imagine the team not at least trying it. I would like to finish my thoughts on this by saying it's your design. If you really want to keep Demi summoning that is entirely you're decision. I'm just trying to explain the problems inherent to the actions design that have persisted ever since they gave us the mechanic, albeit in a biased way. I am aware of how much I detest this mechanic for what it did to HW Summoner, so my negative perspective is something to keep in mind when reading this feedback.

As for Demi summoning being on the GCD, that honestly depends on how your oGCD spread is. Like I said before, an oGCD being used can force them to lock on to a target regardless of your movement, and having an oGCD thats available on the summon GCD can help to prevent the action from being stale. This is a big reason why I detest Gem summons in new-SMN, because it's literally an empty GCD you have nothing to do in. Currently you can Deathflare or Rekindle on your GCD, although if you have a slow gcd this space is probably being taken by at least Energy Drain. Since you have Aetherflow and not Energy Drain/Siphon, You might have to consider using the demi GCD to allow a damage spell in order to force their AI to lock on.

Since your example opener should be at least three GCDS into the fight you may already have raidbuffs up, which would allow you to immediately Deathflare as your damage option. This would force bahamut to attack regardless of your positioning and circumvent the AI problem, but you may have to do something else for phoenix. Since you can Aetherflow prior to the summon you might have to hold on to a Fester for that GCD to accomplish the same thing, since Rekindle doesn't do any damage and won't allow you to force a lock.

The idea behind Shadowflare was an attempt to help cut back on oGcds during the 2 minute reopener by swapping out 2 Festers for a lone Shadowflare, thought taking a look at a hypothetical opener, Shadowflare isn't even needed. I was, however, not aware that too many ground effects can cause those kinds of issues, If that's the case then a lot of puddles will be removed and added to the potency. As for Titans Enkindle, I failed to fix where the puddle was supposed to appear, it was gonna be done at the target not the caster themselves.

The problem with cutting back (imo) is that you're not really doing anything with these GCDs, especially in the Trance cycle where everything is instant anyways. Having more stuff to weave helps prevent the phase from going stale and being reduced to just a 1 button spamfest. I would argue this is a big part of the problem with new Summoner is that you just don't have to pay attention to your supposedly 'big' phase: everything is instant and unless you have a lot of Spell Speed its way to easy to doubleweave and then you're just left with nothing to manage aside from pressing either solo button or aoe button until the Trance ends.

As for Titan, I still feel like the puddle may be at odds with where you would want to use it. Unless the DPS variance between Titan and Ifrit is very tight then you wouldn't want to use Titan unless you don't have a tank (for instance odd comps in Exploratory content or soloing), and in that case the enemy is just going to walk straight out of the puddle and towards you. You could give it a very potent Heavy effect, but you'd still lose out on most of the effect. If you want it to focus on group play value, one suggestion would be to have it function similar to Sage ult in PVP, where standing in the puddle gives you damage reduction or perhaps a small regenerating shield so that other players can take advantage of it. If you want it to be more viable to solo/lowman content, I would suggest something like a single hit with a Stun or some other enfeeble attached to it. This would allow you to get the maximum value out of it in content where the Summoner may be alone without running the risk of making it too good in group content (since nearly every boss is immune to enfeebles).