Which part of summoner's rotation am I meant to find satisfying?

[aveyond-dreams]

After 8 years why does ff14’s summoner not count as a valid incarnation?

Because one look at any other Summoner in the series puts FFXIV's version to shame. If dots were your thing then you deserved a full fledged Time Mage or Necromancer, you would have been far happier with that than having to engage in this seemingly endless discourse against those of us who prefer to be traditional Final Fantasy Summoners.

Merging these two identities helped no one in the end.

I am not satisfied as someone who has almost all available summons in FFXI (and their many abilities) and you aren't because after 8 years things got so bad on Summoner that they had to wipe the slate clean entirely.

[fulminating]

Let’s look at ff3: if it’s something important you use bahamut until you can’t, then drop to leviathan etc. I’m pretty sure there’s an item you can cast lower level summons from to bypass the mp restrictions but it’s been a while.

Ff4: rydia also has black magic and white too initially.

Ff5: ff5’s entire combat system is multiclassing

Ff9: looks like it’s white mage + summoner?

Ff11: oh another game where you have subjobs. White mage, scholar and black mage by the looks of it.

Tactics: summons stuff, also a game where you’re likely to be multiclassing summoner and black or time mages. Not even necessarily with summoner as the main job.

Tactics advance 2: kind of bad, viera only and like most things getting doublecast off red mage is a good idea for it.

Perhaps this anaemic summoner is true to form seeing as cross class skills are no longer in the game.

[aveyond-dreams]

Let’s look at ff3: if it’s something important you use bahamut until you can’t, then drop to leviathan etc. I’m pretty sure there’s an item you can cast lower level summons from to bypass the mp restrictions but it’s been a while.

Ff4: rydia also has black magic and white too initially.

Ff5: ff5’s entire combat system is multiclassing

Ff9: looks like it’s white mage + summoner?

Ff11: oh another game where you have subjobs. White mage, scholar and black mage by the looks of it.

Tactics: summons stuff, also a game where you’re likely to be multiclassing summoner and black or time mages. Not even necessarily with summoner as the main job.

Tactics advance 2: kind of bad, viera only and like most things getting doublecast off red mage is a good idea for it.

Perhaps this anaemic summoner is true to form seeing as cross class skills are no longer in the game.

And in not one of these instances is Summoner cross-classed or subjobbed with a dot class. The only possible instance of this would be in Tactics but that is purely the player's decision and not anything that is forced onto them. I'll stop you in advance before you or anyone else tries to argue that "Rydia had Bio!" and that how that was somehow justification to build FFXIV's Summoner around that with our Summons being an afterthought until Stormblood.

The main gimmick is and has always been summon magic, regardless of how it functions. I play Summoner in FFXI not because I stand there waiting for their auto-attacks to chip away the enemy's HP, because literally all auto-attacks do this, my main satisfaction there comes from Bloodpacts that take huge gaps of HP away whenever they land, and I like the support effects they can do. I can also swap summons mid-battle as the situation demands. If I want to play a dot class in that game, Scholar fills that niche better than Summoner ever could.

I'm certainly not defending the lack of things to do, but injecting irrelevant abilities like Bio or Miasma back would do nothing for the job's namesake. They are, and would always have been, better off on another class. Scholar is the obvious choice for these abilities, along with Fester and Bane, though if some version of them were given to a dark-themed caster then it would also be more fitting.

[Deveryn]

There's more potential for additions and tweaks in this state than the previous. We may not get Shiva for lore reasons, but Fenrir is the same element. Looking at the lead up to UT, there's reason to believe we too could learn more summons. They're doing a lot of work to have things in a better state to receive additions in the future. I'm interested in where this could lead, but it seems I'm alone in that.

[aveyond-dreams]

There's more potential for additions and tweaks in this state than the previous. We may not get Shiva for lore reasons, but Fenrir is the same element. Looking at the lead up to UT, there's reason to believe we too could learn more summons. They're doing a lot of work to have things in a better state to receive additions in the future. I'm interested in where this could lead, but it seems I'm alone in that.

You aren't alone in this at all, it's moreso that people's patience by this point has been worn away at for a number of reasons. We all agree that the job is not where it should be, but no one is in agreement as to what direction to take it in. For myself I refuse to let voices that even hint at favoring reversions go unchallenged, and I will forever maintain that Shadowbringers Summoner was in too compromised of a state to build upon further.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how Shadowbringers Summoner could have received new abilities? Because I sure don't. Bonus points to anyone who can figure out how to incorporate another Summon into that kit.

[fulminating]

Since sch and smn are both branched off arcanist, a job that has shown up once before. Incidentally revolving around draining and dark. I wonder how best to convey draining as a gameplay element in such a way that matters but also doesn’t make it completely immortal (see WAR).

[aveyond-dreams]

Since sch and smn are both branched off arcanist, a job that has shown up once before. Incidentally revolving around draining and dark. I wonder how best to convey draining as a gameplay element in such a way that matters but also doesn’t make it completely immortal (see WAR).

Base classes should in no way supercede the core fantasy of the job. Dragoons should not be more lancers than they are dragoons and Black Mages should not be more Thaumaturges than they are Black Mages. I already told you that mixing these identities together produced an unsatisfactory result for all involved. There is no situation that I can think of in which "Arcanist" should ever be permitted to reign dominant over Summoner.

Those who want dark and draining magic should by every right be better off with Necromancer, and be content with that rather than continuing to pine over Summoner. In all the time that has passed since 6.0 I cannot recall a single one of these individuals putting forth a job concept for Necromancer and instead they insist on trying to wrench back control of Summoner, despite overwhelming opposition to such a direction for *this* job - which is not to say that by consequence that those of us who oppose reversions are fully satisfied with a kit that is missing too much.

[Kolsykol]

[*]How few hardcasts there are/minute. I’m a caster, not a physical ranged.

On the other hand the mobility does make SMN a bit more unique, I don't think spellcasters necessarily need to be hardcasting things.
Personally tho I do prefer it, to me hardcasting just feels better for spellcasters altho then again I actually liked '' Bowmage '' lol.

If SMN was to have this level of mobility tho then I think it could be tied to the Summons in a more direct way instead where it's the Summons doing the damage and you're commanding them.
But I kinda don't like the idea either that we need to be so tied down to these more generic ways of looking at role identity where casters need to be the hardcasters and physical ranged don't cast anything.
Some people say the same too about melee with things like Iajutsu but I think it's something that sets it apart from other melee and is fun.
I actually would find a melee that casted most of its skills pretty interesting too.
I don't think SMN not needing to hardcast is in and of itself a problem rly, however I still do think that either it could be tied to what I said about commanding the Summons or to specific Summons like Garuda.

Imo I kinda wish that you instead generated a resource that you spent on Summons, and that way if you knew a part was coming up with heavy movement soon you could save it for Garuda for example.
I suppose the question would be what to do with the others.
I mean give Titan defensive capabilities?
I think you'd end up in a scenario like Rekindle, I don't think you should have utility essentially be held hostage like that behind damage.
I don't think we'd end up using it to begin with if it came at the sacrifice of damage, but maybe some kind of longer buff to keep up or something and then Ifrit for the biggest damage Summon.

[fulminating]

They will never add necromancer because china. We have heard this from the horse’s mouth. Now stop telling me that I’m not allowed to consider the summoner from the last eight years a summoner, that’s just absurd.

I’m still unconvinced, especially with the dearth of ogcds to do anything with. At least cast times would fill that up a bit. I think we have arrived back at the point that the summons are entirely insubstantial. I am unconvinced that defensive utility on titan would be the way to go, if it’s good enough to matter then it’s too useful for the current design philosophy and if it doesn’t then it’s just flavouring. I think the one/two/many target speciality of the egis worked well enough to distinguish between them, even if two was hardly worth it.

[Rolder50]

You aren't alone in this at all, it's moreso that people's patience by this point has been worn away at for a number of reasons. We all agree that the job is not where it should be, but no one is in agreement as to what direction to take it in. For myself I refuse to let voices that even hint at favoring reversions go unchallenged, and I will forever maintain that Shadowbringers Summoner was in too compromised of a state to build upon further.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how Shadowbringers Summoner could have received new abilities? Because I sure don't. Bonus points to anyone who can figure out how to incorporate another Summon into that kit.

I would agree that the new Summoner has a better flavor and identity, though I am sad to see dots be removed, seeing as now no class uses them as more then just a timer now.

But, I would challenge you on this point; you say that Shadowbringers summoner had no room to grow with new abilities. But, neither does Endwalker summoner. They have the two main Demis and the three gemstones in between. So how could they possibly add new summons? Make it so Ifrit becomes Ramuh or whatever at 92? I can't see how that could even begin to work. They've made an extremely static, on-rails rotation with zero room to grow, both in terms of learning the job, and in terms of future job expansion.