SE, don't overthink Summoner 7.0. Just give people what they want. Just do it.

[VentVanitas]

Honestly, they don't even need to add more buttons.

Just give us the other three "mainline" summons after using Phoenix and most people would be pretty happy and content with that. At least, people that like New SMN would be. People that don't won't be happy unless it's reverted to Old SMN, and that isn't happening anyway.

I will be happy with SMN once it's an actual job that doesn't have or fixes its vapid, disconnected pseudo-mechanics like Gem Summons and Aetherflow. I will be happy with SMN when it actually has more depth to it than a goddamn puddle. It does not need to be old SMN. I just want SMN to be good, and adding more insipid Gems that don't add or change literally a single thing to the job does not achieve that.

[Nizzi]

Take SMN behind the barn and treat it like Old Yeller

[Vinal211]

Leviathan.

Ramuh.

Shiva.

That's. It.

Please. Don't overthink this. Don't do something weird and pointless.

We don't need "Ruin 5".

We don't need "Summon Bahamut II".

We don't need "Energy Vacuum".

We don't need some weird fourth gauge that we consume to ride Susanoo around like a mount for 15 seconds and force enemies to engage in Active Time Events.

Please. Don't try to "subvert expectations". Don't.

Just do the thing.

Just give us the rest of the Classic Final Fantasy Summons™.

Just do it.
[/INDENT]

I had the exact same thought myself, though some of my ideas would be to remove the energy drain/siphon thing entirely, have the aetherflow given from going into aethercharge/trance/demi-summoning. rename Aetherflow Dreadaether and Fester Dreadflare. Why stop at the original ARR summons? the Trances internalize the primal aether to allow for more than what can be "imprinted" on a persons soul. have the Warring Triad as a Trance/Demi-Summon, make the primals Ravana, Bismark and Alexander. Shinryu's the fourth Trance/Demi-summon. Susano-o, Lakshmi, and Tsukuyomi after using that. rest of the "big" primals? new mechanic, gain Astral or Umbral Dreadaether after using a Demi-Summon, get 2 Astral/Umbral Dreadaether, or one of each? Odin, Knights of the Round, or Moggle Mog. give more Carbuncle abilities in between for minor things like regen or defense buffs. the final bit of levels? ARR primals transform into their Eden variants.

[ataren3]

I will be happy with SMN once it's an actual job that doesn't have or fixes its vapid, disconnected pseudo-mechanics like Gem Summons and Aetherflow. I will be happy with SMN when it actually has more depth to it than a goddamn puddle. It does not need to be old SMN. I just want SMN to be good, and adding more insipid Gems that don't add or change literally a single thing to the job does not achieve that.

I want Summoner to FEEL more like summoner and be more complex than... what we have now. Current summoner isn't a summoner. You don't summon something to have it fight with you. Titan, Garuda, and Ifrit all pop out and go away. Oh and look at that! You can now use THEIR abilities for them!

Bahamut and Phoenix are fine. They actually do stuff and you can order them to do abilities. I wish they had a little more to them than their equivalent of an auto-attack with two one-time abilities but at least they make you feel a little bit like a summoner.

The current summoner feels more akin to a "Channeler" class which I would be totally fine with if it was a different class.

[Ggwppino]

Step 2:

...
There, now we have:

• A reason to use both Bahamut and Phoenix
• A reason to use all 6 Summons
• Some amount of flexibility in deciding the order to arrange it all, based on choosing Phoenix First or Bahamut First

First I would like to point out that I enjoyed reading your post and there are some really nice ideas and you have raised points that have been left dead in endwalker. But this Step 2 does not really convince me:

Add 3 new elementals and I think all summoners are happy. Of course, how could it be otherwise.
But due to the way you propose it, it doesn't primarily solve the factual problem that the smn is spoon-fed. The gcds of the two trios, I'm guessing, are the same. So you'd be using all abilities from all summons, so this doesn't involve the player having to think.

Also why should a player choose one trio over another? If a trio has more damage they would be picked. The player cannot choose which trio to use based on the mechanics for the simple fact that the window is too large: it lasts 43 seconds.

The casters have the good fortune and the characteristic of not having a pre-established rotation dictated by the game unlike melee. The smn in my opinion is designed for this. It is designed to be more similar to a blm than a drg:
Currently smn so close to blm because he can use the elementals however he want, but so far because the resources it has are sipped perfectly to fit into the burst phase.
Will it be my business with the blm as I use Fire? and how many to use? Why should it be different with smn? can I use how many Gardua or Shiva rites to use based on how i want?

Current summoner isn't a summoner.

I partially agree. It is true that it would be much more summoner if the elementals didn't disappear and the attacks came directly from them, but currently the elementals enter and do their ulti with burst damage. So SMN is currently both.

I think designers only chose to do this because the summon AI is crap. For the same reason, the carbuncle doesn't attack automatically. The lack of responsiveness doesn't sit well with the current gameplay. Also holding an elemental would lengthen the animations. There would be a tremendous lock

I will never get tired of writing, carbuncle should be a separate entity from the other summons that can be present simultaneously with them, that has the role of supporter, enriching it with support functions that provide for its correct positioning like shields, buff, heal and other support stuff for example rescue for you or party memeber. This way you are in full control of your summon, without incurring stupid AI.

[Renathras]

I will be happy with SMN once it's an actual job that doesn't have or fixes its vapid, disconnected pseudo-mechanics like Gem Summons and Aetherflow. I will be happy with SMN when it actually has more depth to it than a goddamn puddle. It does not need to be old SMN. I just want SMN to be good, and adding more insipid Gems that don't add or change literally a single thing to the job does not achieve that.

Okay, let's dig into this.

How are its mechanics "disconnected"? Old SMN was far MORE disconnected. DWT and Bahamut had no relation. FBT had no relation to Bahamut. The ARR Green Mage "filler" phase had no connection to any of the others other than ensuring you had 4 stacks of Ruin 4 when you went into Bahamut and using Tri-disaster before DWT/FBT to get the free refresh.

The current one flows directly Demi, Summon x3, Demi, Summon x3.

What is "vapid" about it?

The only mechanic that is disconnected is still having Aetherflow, honestly. They could just put Painflare on a 60 sec CD and have it proc Ruin 4, balance both for the single target damage ED+3x Festers do right now, and "The last remnants, of the old [Summoner], have been swept away." -Tarkin.

It's the easiest Job in the game, but that's not really a problem since there are plenty of hard Jobs people can play instead if they want hard Jobs, and it's healthy for a game to have a range of difficulties across its varied classes. A game of only hard classes tends not to last long, and a game of all "medium difficulty" classes (can "medium" have meaning if there are no "easy" and "hard" to compare to?) ends up feeling very same-y and boring. Hell, they even made RDM a bit harder (to optimize) this expansion vs last one.

"I just want SMN to be good" - SMN is, as of this writing, the most used Caster in TOP Ultimate clears, including part of the pair (BLM/SMN) of the only dual Caster clear.

Let that sink it. It IS "good", otherwise that wouldn't be happening. It does more damage than RDM while still bringing some of its utility and not requiring the party to optimize around it like BLM. Very clearly, SMN is "good", both in objective performance and in subjective evaluation by a good chunk of the community, including world first Ultimate raid teams.

Take SMN behind the barn and treat it like Old Yeller

They did that in 6.0...

And kind of for that reason: They said there wasn't any place they could think of going with Old SMN/new things to add. Old SMN was a mess of tacked on and repurposed systems. Its Filler phase was almost entirely its ARR systems, its DWT was HW, Bahamut was SB (and worked different depending on if you were under or above level 70 in terms of if you needed 2x DWTs to get into it or not), and FBT was ShB. Things just kept being tacked on, and it had become a total mess that, oddly, somehow still WORKED, but they had no idea where else to go with it, what else to tack on, that would still work and not break it, and they were already shoehorning things into other things, like ARR's Egi-Assaults (now GCDs) generating Ruin 4 stacks to maximize Bahamut Wyrmwaves and HW and ShB's DWT/FBT refreshing SB's Tri-Disaster used in ARR's Filler phase!

It was an abject mess of a Job held together by duct tape, hope, and hours of theorycrafter simulations.

Current summoner isn't a summoner. You don't summon something to have it fight with you. Titan, Garuda, and Ifrit all pop out and go away.

Have you ever played a FF game before FF10?

I don't mean this as a slight, but FFX was the first FF game where Summons fought on the field - in place of, not alongside, their Summoner. I believe FF13 is the only Final Fantasy to date where Summons fought in the field alongside their Summoner. (Maybe FF11, never played it so not sure how it worked). FF4, Rydia's Summons came, did their attack, and left. FF5's Summoner Job worked that way. FF6's Magecite Summons worked that way. FF7's Summon Materia worked that way. FFTactics (the original and the War of the Lions remake) Summons were called in, did their thing (had a wide area field effect), and then left. FF8's Guardian Forces worked that way (with a short arrival time where they could be KO'd preventing the attack and with the Boost mechanic where you could increase their damage potential). FF9's Summons (both Garnet's and Eiko's) came, did their attack, and left.

FFX was the first time a Summon stayed on the field. They didn't fight "alongside" the party (or even the Summoner), as Yuna, while standing to the side, took no actions and wasn't targetable during the duration, so it's like she wasn't even there. FF12's Summons were the first iteration of a Summon taking the field WITH the Summoner (and party), and fighting along with them. FF13 performed a hybrid of the two, with the Summons arriving and fighting with the Summoner (though controlled by the AI) then combining with the Summoner for their finishing attacks. The rest of the party, I believe, was dismissed for the Summon period. [EDIT: Looking up FF11, it looks like their Summons also worked like FF12, with one of two flavors, Summon Avatars proper and then Elemental Spirits which were AI controlled entirely outside of the SMN's hands, but had access to the "Ancient [Element]" tiers of magic spells.]

FF15 was again, in spectacular fashion, the Summon arriving, doing their big attack, and then leaving.

So by your definition, the only real Summoners in all of Final Fantasy history were...Summons in FF12 [and FF11]? MAYBE FF13 and FF10 if we're being extra generous?

That's a pretty narrow definition...especially since, other than Yuna, the FF12 and FF13 casts were never considered "Summoners" while many of the earlier ones (FFTactics Job, FF5 Job, FF4's Rydia, FF9's Garnet and Eiko) all were actually defined as being Summoners. [FF11 Summoners seem to actually be the only Summoners in FF history that work the way you're trying to define all Summoners.]

The current summoner feels more akin to a "Channeler" class which I would be totally fine with if it was a different class.

That's more or less what Summoners have always been in Final Fantasy.

Old SMN felt less like a Summoner and more like a "Green Caller" to me. A Green Mage with a slim selection of support Summons. [Color] Caller, in FF terms, means [Color] Mage with a few less magic spells and a small selection of Summons, sorta like how a Red Mage is to a Black Mage + White Mage. Eiko in FF9 could be defined by some as a White Caller since she was a bit more the game's White Mage (Garnet didn't have access to Holy, Eiko did) and had 4 Summons, two of which (Carbuncle and Phoenix - which had a chance of auto-summoning if the party was wiped out to prevent a wipe) are support/healing focused, one other, Madeen, is the game's only Holy element Summon, and her Trance ability was Double White as opposed to Garnet's Eidolon, which focuses more on her Summons (they are invoked as a "counter attack" while she's in Trance and ones invoked via Eidolon have a chance of randomly appearing in battle, and she also has a higher chance of getting the full animation Summon, which does more damage), and her Summon pool is also wider and includes the more traditional Summons, like Ifrit, Shiva, and Bahamut, including the most powerful one in the game, Ark, which did Darkness damage type instead of Madeen's Holy.

.

I liked Old SMN for what it was - a Green Caller - but New SMN is actually much more like a traditional Final Fantasy Summoner than Old SMN was, and even mixes all the past Summoner forms together, having "fire and forget" SMNs like Rydia, Garnet, Eiko, FF5 and FFT Jobs, and the Magecite/Materia/GF summoning systems, while also having the "fights alongside you" Bahamut/Phoenix Summons, which is more like the FFX, FF12, and FF13 summoning systems. It's got it all.

I will never get tired of writing, carbuncle should be a separate entity from the other summons that can be present simultaneously with them, that has the role of supporter, enriching it with support functions that provide for its correct positioning like shields, buff, heal and other support stuff for example rescue for you or party memeber. This way you are in full control of your summon, without incurring stupid AI.

Agree with this. Considering at least the three "lesser" Summons are all "appear, blast, leave", and basically just a really fancy SFX "spell animation", there's really no reason for them to interact with Carby in any way. You could make some argument about Bahamut or Phoenix, but not for the other three.

[Vinal211]

Okay, let's dig into this.

How are its mechanics "disconnected"? Old SMN was far MORE disconnected. DWT and Bahamut had no relation. FBT had no relation to Bahamut. The ARR Green Mage "filler" phase had no connection to any of the others other than ensuring you had 4 stacks of Ruin 4 when you went into Bahamut and using Tri-disaster before DWT/FBT to get the free refresh.

Honestly, i feel like Old SMN's skillset could still be readily used. does it work as what a FF Summoner "actually is"? probably not. does it work as a beastmaster type of class and could be readily placed onto a new class, just with some reworks so it's not just something like "Old Summoner, but you use a battleaxe!"? hell yes, i would LOVE to see Old SMN kit being used again, and i say this as someone who is in absolute love with New SMN. both have their own ways to go about it. Old SMN was a High skill ceiling, high reward type of playstyle, but it also came down to latency and your own hand-eye coordination to make sure your 2-minute opener (oh hey look it would have fit perfectly into the 2-minute burst meta we got going on, har har) didn't screw one thing up or your DPS was neutered into the ground. New SMN is easy to pick up, easy to master, but it does still feel "incomplete". not to the extent that i think DRK is, but it does feel like there should be way more included in the kit and the rotation to make it feel whole, while aetherflow does still feel like a leftover mechanic from before.

Basically, Both kits can readily work and readily exist together, just in separate classes with more fine-tuning and additions to fully fill the kits out.

[Ggwppino]

Agree with this. Considering at least the three "lesser" Summons are all "appear, blast, leave", and basically just a really fancy SFX "spell animation", there's really no reason for them to interact with Carby in any way. You could make some argument about Bahamut or Phoenix, but not for the other three.

I would also keep it untied from bahamut and phoenix for the simple fact that I would like to restore the buff to the carbuncle. Since the buff is an integral and active part of the rotation, so enhance its role as a supporter

[VentVanitas]

How are its mechanics "disconnected"? Old SMN was far MORE disconnected. DWT and Bahamut had no relation. FBT had no relation to Bahamut. The ARR Green Mage "filler" phase had no connection to any of the others other than ensuring you had 4 stacks of Ruin 4 when you went into Bahamut and using Tri-disaster before DWT/FBT to get the free refresh.

Feel free to tell me what purpose Carbuncle serves and why they're needed to summon Bahamut despite contributing nothing but a shield.

What is "vapid" about it?

Aetherflow is vapid because it has no thought or strategy to using it. Press Energy Drain on cooldown, dump in buffs. No relation or cohesion to anything.

Gems are vapid because they could functionally be removed from the kit entirely and nothing would change other than visual spectacle. All it adds to the kit is giving you a different flavour of Ruin to mash, unless you want to tell me that the only three mandatory hardcasts or two melee GCDs in your rotation is suddenly a big deal. So long as it is sandwiched between the current functioning demi summons, it effectively does not matter.

The only mechanic that is disconnected is still having Aetherflow, honestly. They could just put Painflare on a 60 sec CD and have it proc Ruin 4, balance both for the single target damage ED+3x Festers do right now, and "The last remnants, of the old [Summoner], have been swept away." -Tarkin.

Do you seriously not see the problem in suggesting to make a mechanic actively worse? Why not just fucking make Aetherflow a proper mechanic again??? It's because of suggestions like these that we constantly have shit deleted from jobs and are given absolutely nothing in return.

"I just want SMN to be good" - SMN is, as of this writing, the most used Caster in TOP Ultimate clears, including part of the pair (BLM/SMN) of the only dual Caster clear.

Let that sink it. It IS "good", otherwise that wouldn't be happening. It does more damage than RDM while still bringing some of its utility and not requiring the party to optimize around it like BLM. Very clearly, SMN is "good", both in objective performance and in subjective evaluation by a good chunk of the community, including world first Ultimate raid teams.

I couldn't care less. Good job design and good job viability are not the same thing. It could be the best caster in the game for speedkills and I would still call it shit so long as it remains as it is. Monk is my main, and it being arguably one of the strongest melees in all of EW so far does not sway my opinion on it being a badly designed job. SMN is no different to me.

[Renathras]

I would also keep it untied from bahamut and phoenix for the simple fact that I would like to restore the buff to the carbuncle. Since the buff is an integral and active part of the rotation, so enhance its role as a supporter

Oh, I don't disagree. And honestly, they could give Carby a GCD "Ruin 2" (SCH) type attack so it can spit out chip damage and make the commands you give oGCDs so it could use them at literally any time. That would make Carbie seem to have a point other than just "you must have this out to do your actual job".

I was more meaning that at least one could make an argument for it being tied to Bahamut/Phoenix (albeit, a tenuous one), but there's legitimately no reason for it to be connected to the other three. I'm guessing it steps on the same code for the low level ones, but that's really no excuse.

Honestly, i feel like Old SMN's skillset could still be readily used.

...

Basically, Both kits can readily work and readily exist together, just in separate classes with more fine-tuning and additions to fully fill the kits out.

Oh, I 100% agree with this.

I think New SMN is the better summoner. It more captures the class fantasy and lore of Summoners, both in FF14 and in Final Fantasy as a whole.

...however...

...I feel that there was enough in Old SMN to legitimately split it into two Jobs. Possibly three.

On the one hand, you had the Demis (Summons), which fold well into the new SMN. But you also had the makings of a Green Mage (with the DoTs and arguably with the Aetherflow abilities, Tri-Disaster, etc) and a Beastmaster (with the Egis, Enkindle, Egi-Assaults, etc)

They could easily have made New SMN and Green Mage (GRM) out of Old SMN, if not Beast Master (BSM) on the side. And it is ironic to me, too, that Old SMN fit perfectly into the 2 min model, yet was changed (granted, the new one does, too, but still)

I guess New SMN doesn't feel "incomplete" to me since I played Old SMN as far back as ARR, and New SMN seems to me to have at least as much going on as that. For those that don't remember, it was 3 (or 4...I guess you could Cross-Class Aero...) DoTs, Shadow Flare on whatever the CD was, Ruinspam. So New SMN feels complete enough to me, though I feel like after Phoenix you should use the other three ARR Primals (Leviathan, Ramuh, and Shiva)

EDIT:

Feel free to tell me what purpose Carbuncle serves and why they're needed to summon Bahamut despite contributing nothing but a shield.

Oh, I agree Carby needs to have something else going on. It HAD the buff, but that caused problems when you summoned things. The simple fix would be to not make Carby dismiss when you summon things. They could also (imo should also) give it a Ruin 2 instant cast (like SCH) and make its buffs oGCDs, that way it can use them whenever commanded but is doing something slightly more than standing around doing nothing. Would also be neat if they made the shield a thing you could put on others (like the PvP version) or gave it a party-wide one (like Eiko's Protect/Shield/Reflect capability in FF9), but they might worry about balance. Of course, they gave RDM Magicked Barrier, so...

Aetherflow is vapid because it has no thought or strategy to using it. Press Energy Drain on cooldown, dump in buffs. No relation or cohesion to anything.

I mean, that's not actually the right way to use it, but sure? It generates Ruin 2, which may not always be best to use right away (it's nice to keep on hand during Ifrit in case movement is required, for example), though ED/S and Fester/Painflare are pretty much burn in burst windows...which makes them like Fleche/Contra Sixte, Gauss Round/Ricochet, Bloodletter/BRD's other smorgasbord of oGCDs, Assize, Upheval, etc etc; more than half the Jobs in the game have something like this going on - hell, its sister Job, SCH, does this with Energy Drain!), so this is hardly something different. None of those abilities listed have any "relation or cohesion to anything". Some have ties with other parts of the kit (Gauss/Rico/Bloodletter), but many don't at all are are just "use on CD/cram in burst if you can", like Fleche/Contra Sixte, Assize, and Upheaval. And that's hardly an exhaustive list. So many Jobs have those, it's frankly annoying, but it's not a SMN problem.

Gems are vapid because they could functionally be removed from the kit entirely and nothing would change other than visual spectacle. All it adds to the kit is giving you a different flavour of Ruin to mash, unless you want to tell me that the only three mandatory hardcasts or two melee GCDs in your rotation is suddenly a big deal. So long as it is sandwiched between the current functioning demi summons, it effectively does not matter.

Wut? o.O

Have you played New SMN at level 90?

Pressing 2-3, 2-3, 2-3, 2-3, 2... 2... 3-3, 2-2-2-2 3... is rather different than pressing 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1... You may not LIKE IT, but removing it would very much change SMN's rotation in a noticeable way.

Do you seriously not see the problem in suggesting to make a mechanic actively worse?

How would it make it worse? It would be mechanically identical, just without making no sense, thematically, and having a gauge and function that exists "just because it used to have it", which is dumb.

Why not just fucking make Aetherflow a proper mechanic again???

Because Aetherflow doesn't now, and never really, made sense for a Summoner? Deleting pointless nonsense as part of a total rework that made the pointless nonsense entirely pointless and nonsensical is hardly the crime of the century.

I couldn't care less.

You cared enough to make it one of your arguments.

I'm just pointing out you were wrong.

It could be the best caster in the game for speedkills and I would still call it shit so long as it remains as it is.

That just makes you stubborn and wrong. If it's the best Caster in the game, it wouldn't be shit.

Monk is my main, and it being arguably one of the strongest melees in all of EW so far does not sway my opinion on it being a badly designed job. SMN is no different to me.

MNK is an entirely different Job design. And if you like it, more power to you. Me personally, I find MNK convoluted and annoying to play, so...I don't play it. I find it more annoying than NIN. Different Jobs for different Bobs, I guess. It's a good thing, and healthy for the game, to have different Jobs with different playstyles so that they appeal to more people and so more people playing the game can find Jobs that they like.

.

Your arguments largely amount to "I don't like it" and "I'm going to lie about facts to support my not liking it".

I get you don't like it, and that's fine...but don't make up stuff to make your argument seem stronger than it is.

As I said above, I feel they could have made two entire Jobs out of Old SMN (if not three), New SMN being the Summoner one and Green Mage being the DoT Mage one. There's no reason they couldn't add GRM. Supposedly they're worried about DoTs, but that's an empty argument when they added one for PLD (which they've now removed), every Healer has one (including the new one), and they added all kinds of boss debuff weird abilities (including RPR's...personally damage buff...for REASONS...)

I still feel so. If in 7.0 they only Job they added was GRM, and it was Old SMN's main "filler" rotation system with a bit more on the side to make up for the Demis being gone, I'd be fine with it.

...I wouldn't play it (I hate DoTs and never really will care for them), but I'd love it in the game because I know people like that kind of gameplay, and as I said above, "It's a good thing, and healthy for the game, to have different Jobs with different playstyles so that they appeal to more people and so more people playing the game can find Jobs that they like."