Summoner changes that should happen onto 7.0

[Ayden]

Perhaps something like this?

[remiff]

The summoner has always been a burst mage, and the summons of garuda, titan and ifrit are only the new filler phases doing only average damage,
putting the use of bahamut after having spent the gems has no sense with the current itineration,
it would even be very largely unfavorable to the summoner's dps, and would make it even worse on the downtime phases where it no longer shines since the rework.

[baklava151]

Not just DRG and MNK. Also BLM, RDM, WHM, SAM and RPR. So it's not an exception, it's actually the norm to build up tot he strongest skills. Rushing Bahamut as an opener and give access to it BEFORE the three elemental primals feels backwards and takes away relevance to Bahamut since it is treated as a standard spell/phase and also takes away relevance from Phoenix since it is exactly like another bahamut phase but with less damage. The three elemental primals also lose relevance since their attacks are not as strong and you can't open with them.

What doesn't makle sense is to have your strongest primal made available early and get lower damage primals at lvl 90 or to burst strong at start and go downhill from there as you keep fighting.

After the opener yeah they have to build up again but my point was they have some method to immediately acquire their strongest attack, which is probably a deliberate choice to let them catch raid buffs hence why I think SMN is designed the way it is. RDM has Manafication, the changes to SAM's Meikyo Shisui in EW made it so they could get their personal buffs more quickly and fit Midare more comfortably in the opener, RPR has Plentiful Harvest to get Enshroud, BLM is flexible enough that it can get a Despair in ASAP and Amplifier. Meanwhile Dragoon has to wait at least 30 seconds to unlock Life of the Dragon (although it's usually a minute to keep it lined up with buffs), MNK needs some time to get Phantom Rush and I forgot WHM does also have Afflatus Misery which it can't use immediately, but those seem to be the exception. Also just remembered BRD with Apex Arrow.

I agree it should be the other way around and using Titan/Garuda/Ifrit should lead to unlocking Bahamut/Phoenix, just stating what SE's reasoning probably is even if I don't like it myself.

[Deveryn]

I'm still not sold on why SMN should have such a delay for big damage. I think people are too stuck on the old format where we summoned one of the other three before Bahamut. We already have a lesser summon out, so little has changed. We're just doing all the damage now.

[Dahlinea]

I'm still not sold on why SMN should have such a delay for big damage. I think people are too stuck on the old format where we summoned one of the other three before Bahamut. We already have a lesser summon out, so little has changed. We're just doing all the damage now.

Pre-EW SMN was always Bahamut in the opener but it was not just Bahamut back then like we're seeing right now. What people are saying is that in the current version it doesn't make sense to start with the bigger summon to unlock the lesser ones. The logical path would be to start of with lesser ones and using those would be the requirement to access the bigger ones.

[Deveryn]

Pre-EW SMN was always Bahamut in the opener but it was not just Bahamut back then like we're seeing right now. What people are saying is that in the current version it doesn't make sense to start with the bigger summon to unlock the lesser ones. The logical path would be to start of with lesser ones and using those would be the requirement to access the bigger ones.

Pre-EW, you wouldn't cycle through the 3 (no cycling on a boss). Pre-EW, Dreadwyrm Trance (and Crimson Cyclone) was the opener.

This logical path you're talking about is just the quest progression. Technically, we can summon whichever we want. This is how they set up the phases and it works better than this other idea.

Carbuncle now fills that "lesser" spot.

[Haventale]

I think part of the problem here is the conflict between damage, lore and visual build up. I totally get people saying that it feels unrewarding to start with the highest damage thing, only to build up to lower damage things. And I get that bahamut is supposed to be more powerful lore wise than the ifrit, titan and garuda, so again, you’re going from the most powerful primal to much lesser primals, and lore wise, it feels like it doesn’t make sense.

But now we’ve run into a problem. Because of how they all are right now, bahamut/phoenix are a third of the size of the other three. It would be extremely anticlimactic to start off summoning the biggest most visually impressive primals, only to build up to something that is tiny in comparison, that doesn’t make any sense as a visual experience and is visually unrewarding.

With Pre-EW SMN, bahamut (and then pheonix) were the biggest summons, so building up to them made sense. But now they’re a fraction of the size of the other three, so they simply don’t feel anywhere near as impressive. Thusly, turning them into the new “filler summons” as it were, in between the “big cool” summons of ifrit, titan and garuda.

If this rotational debate is going to get solved somehow, addressing the visual experience is going to have to be addressed as well.

[Dahlinea]

Pre-EW, you wouldn't cycle through the 3 (no cycling on a boss). Pre-EW, Dreadwyrm Trance (and Crimson Cyclone) was the opener.

Well, no. Bahamut was an integral part of the opener. We wouldn't be burning all our Egi-assaults as soon as possible to bank the Ruin IV stacks and achieve Bahamut in time to match with the initial party buffs otherwise.
What you're seeing now in EW SMN is just the simplification of that opener by taking away around 70% of what we did in Pre-EW SMN during the opener.

This logical path you're talking about is just the quest progression. Technically, we can summon whichever we want. This is how they set up the phases and it works better than this other idea.

No one said anything about locking the summons in any order. Just the counterintuitive idea of "Demis unlocking lesser summons" is the point people are making. And 'works better' is a pretty subjective assumption.

[fulminating]

Current summoner is a garbled mess visually, thematically and rotationally. It's only fitting that you cast your strongest attack to build the weaker ones. Clearly they spent too much time on Sage Reaper Bard Samurai Monk? and had none left over to take summoner beyond the first draft. Or the resources needed to turn the dot and pet class into a joke job were more than anticipated.

Come 7.0 what it needs is:
1) Aetherflow turned into something meaningful. Doesn't matter what it is or if it's fully replaced with something else to be managed, but the job lacks any resource management to speak of.
2) Either the complete removal of the pet/carbuncle or returning it to something that matters. As it stands all it retains are the downsides from before.
3) Rotational flexibility. Choosing which order you eat your crayon in is not really flexibility.
4) More than 2-3 casts/minute. Is it a caster or a physical ranged? Choose.
5) The rotation to build to something. As mentioned, it feels entirely backwards to build/unlock your filler/crayons/lesser summons from your harder hits. This could be coupled with fixing aetherflow or otherwise. As seen every other time summoner is implimented in a game with more than a rudimentary combat system, "traditional summoner" offers little-to-no depth.
6) More tying it to scholar. Lean into both jobs evolving from arcanist or remove it entirely. Trying to separate them, particularly at this late juncture is futile at best.
7) lv99 or 100 to be the highest attainable level, with development in further expansions coming from cross-class skills (not necessarily implimented as before) or other systems. Summoner's leveling rotation is comically barren, this is an issue that will only be exacerbated by a constantly growing level cap, particularly with SE's current job design philosophy.

[Renascent]

My take is that Smn base design is fine now even instant bahamut, just it's execution suck because of how streamlined it is.
Like just double the number of rite on each primal and adjust potency so that primal like Ifrit that actually got sauce are the highest potency and bam you may have to actually make more meaningfull choice now.

Also 7 month later i still dont unsertand why they made bahamut and phoenix so freaking samy when they felt distinct before.

I could find one hundred idea to make them feel distinct (and still fucking brainded if it's what is needed) but no make them the same like????