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

[aveyond-dreams]

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.

Which is precisely why some of those restrictions need doing away with and freedom of choice being put back in the hands of the player - I previously stated that giving the player up to 6 gems to choose from (along with Fester/Painflare/Ruin IV being upgraded to summons themselves) would be enough but I'd rather up that number to as high as however many available summons we can draw from in game. I'll list some ideas below, with no further insta-cast options given that Titan and Garuda are essentially safety nets for players unwilling to take the risk of cast timers:

- Lakshmi, the weakest hitting summon, Rite and Catastrophe spells are casted healing abilities and there is only 1-2 charges of them. Astral flow is a ocgd that can be woven between heals.

- Sophia, medium cast timers. Astral Flow has a long cast timer and summons Sophia's "head" for a column attack.

- Shiva, medium cast timers. Astral Flow is a physical melee combo, possibly up to 3 in a row to differ it from Ifrit.

- Zurvan, long cast timers. Astral Flow is a jump with a short cast timer that deals heavy damage and leaves the Summoner at the spot of landing.

- Sephirot, long cast timers. Astral Flow is a long cast timer that does a sweeping cone aoe.

- Ravana, the upgrade to Fester as a single-target attack.

- Bismark, the upgrade to Painflare as an aoe attack.

- Susano, long cast timers. Astral Flow is first a casted spell with a follow-up ocgd, with 2 swords coming down on the enemy.

- Ramuh, medium cast timers. Astral Flow leaves behind a dot on enemies.

- Leviathan, medium cast timers. Astral Flow is a two part attack beginning with a column shaped attack that draws the summoner in, followed by a circular aoe around them.

- Shinryu, let's make this one a fun one, medium cast timers and a random Astral Flow ability from any of the other gem summons. Probably not the best to use, but nice flavor for the Zenos lovers I suppose.

- Alexander, the Elder Summon with long cast timers that can be used after filling the Elder Summon gauge to max, with it filling faster the more casted summons one uses.

- Odin, the Elder Summon with no cast timers that has the drawback of being only able to be used in melee range.

This is what I was able to come up with in the span of a few minutes, I would also like to go back and incorporate a Dancer or Ninja-like minigame of sorts into one of these like Sophia perhaps that could add further effects, and doubtless others will have ideas of their own as to how these summons could work. I suppose we can also free up the players choice between Bahamut and Phoenix and convert any of those I've mentioned above into a Demi with its own unique gimmick, I see no reason as to why one *must* open with Bahamut at all times when it would be better left to the player's decision.

Is it so difficult to see that pretty much all gem summons in this iteration could've been slapped in the old formula in place of egi-assaults without much of an issue? And the road to follow to add more summons and their thematic skills is not so difficult to see? Because the summons ARE the egi-assaults.

In the old formula they could even go further to make the summons stay if they want, even removing DoTs to make more room for better summon command skills if needed. We're now left with "summon machinegun" with zero substance to their skills.

But hey, let's pretend ShB SMN was not a summoner job because it didn't summon all bosses of the game that does a little cool attack.

Summoning bosses for cool attacks is sort of the main draw for Summoner. You may not feel like you are "summoning" things now but previous to 6.0 I felt like I was only able to summon Bahamut and Phoenix with summoning the egis being something I do once prior to a battle and then never swap them. Being able to choose from and summon more than just a few over the course of a battle is considered a bonus nowadays and merely adding new "egis" would (not only be visually underwhelming) fail to provide that freedom of choice and would do nothing to remedy the clunky way in which trances had to be juggled compared to now, and does nothing to solve the issue of old Summoner's controls feeling bad throughout.

I don't like being forced into the "right summon" as others have put it. While could certainly only stick with one summon in the course of a longer battle in FFXI, that isn't how I like doing things. I summon Shiva for her hard hitting Blood Pact: Rage, then I might call up Garuda for her Haste Blood Pact: Ward, before switching over to Fenrir or another summon as I see fit. I'm not constrained by singe target vs aoe summons. I can match the situation on the fly, which is what FFXIV's Summoner *attempted* to allow for even if its implementation is quite limited at the moment.

I do not miss egi-assaults nor do I miss the failed concept of egis as a whole. Visually underwhelming and lost amidst the rest of Summoner's irrelevant kit of abilities that had little to do with summoning at all. It also removes the excuse for them to keep us with egi character models because our summons aside from Bahamut and Phoenix are no longer constantly taking up space on everyone's screen, and the tools to resize them are available to all.

Going back to the previous version isn't happening. One day if I feel so inclined I might revisit its former kit and see what I can salvage of that into a proper Sorceror or Time Mage concept, though I would much rather have something directly called Necromancer. I am not interested in allowing the censorship practices of other regions stifle creativity and job expression for the whole rest of the world.